Map of the area of Kent north of the town of Sevenoaks showing Fort HalsteadFort Halstead former MOD establishment in Kent UK, viewed in 2011. At intervals there is a projection in the fence line, this is to allow those guards inside to get a better view along the outside of the fence.
The base became home to the Projectile Development Establishment, the Ministry of Supply and later was the headquarters of the Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment (RARDE).[1]
Design and construction
Fort Halstead formed a part of the London Defence Positions, a scheme devised by Lieutenant GeneralSir Edward Bruce Hamley and implemented by the Secretary of State for War, Edward Stanhope, who announced the plan to Parliament in 1889. The scheme envisaged a line of entrenchments which would be dug in the event of war to protect the southern and eastern approaches to the capital. Supporting these were to be thirteen simple forts, known as "Mobilisation Centres", which would contain the tools, stores and ammunition for the men of the Volunteer Force, who were tasked with digging the entrenchments and manning them against any invaders.[2]
Putting these plans into action in 1890, the War Office purchased land at Halstead, Kent, on high ground near the town of Sevenoaks. Delayed by a shortage of funds, the polygonal fort was constructed between 1895 and 1897; it featured vaulted barrack casemates on the west side and a magazine on the east.[3] An earthen rampart with positions for light field artillery pieces and machine guns was surrounded by a ditch with a concrete revetment on the scarp face. A cottage was built for a caretaker, who was responsible for maintenance and security in peacetime.[2]
History as a defensive work
The growing superiority of the Royal Navy , and the signing of the Entente Cordiale with France, resulted in the reduced likelihood of an invasion and the London Defence Scheme was officially abandoned in March 1906. Many of the Mobilisation Centres were quickly sold; however, Fort Halstead and a few others were retained, perhaps to facilitate the dispersal of the stores removed from the other sites. After the outbreak of the First World War, the London Defence Scheme was revived and many of the planned entrenchments were actually dug to form an inland stop line.[2]
Fort Halstead seems to have reverted to its intended role at this time; in 1915, a laboratory was built inside the fort for the inspection of ammunition. In 1921, the fort was sold to a retired colonel, who took up residence in the laboratory and let out the cottages. The rest of the site was used as a campsite for the Territorial Army, Boy Scouts, Girl Guides, and accommodation of refugees.[4]
Rocket research
In 1938, Fort Halstead became the home of the Projectile Development Establishment, which was continuing work on solid fuelled rockets that had started at Royal Arsenal in Woolwich two years earlier. Under the direction of Alwyn Crow, work was mainly on rockets that could be used as anti-aircraft weapons. In connection with this research, over eighty new buildings were constructed in and around the fort.[4]
The work at Halstead resulted in the 7-inch Unrotated Projectile used on ships of the Royal Navy, and a 3-inch version that was operated by the British Army in hundreds of Z Batteries for the air defence of the United Kingdom. Further developments were the RP-3 air-to-surface anti-tank rocket and the Mattress and Land Mattress surface-to-surface bombardment systems.[5]
In 1940, Fort Halstead became vulnerable to enemy action and Germans knew about the rocket development there, so Projectile Development Establishment was evacuated to RAE Aberporth.[6]
In 1996, the bus from the Aldwych bus bombing was taken to Fort Halstead for analysis, where previously a number of Irish Republican Army (IRA) explosive devices had been examined.
RARDE was home to a number of military simulation and war game projects, mainly aimed as assessing the effectiveness of future defence equipment procurement. After Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and throughout the latter half of 1990, a series of computerised war games were conducted at RARDE in preparation for Operation Granby, Britain's contribution to the Gulf War.
In 2017, scientists from the Forensic Explosives Laboratory at Fort Halstead examined the wreckage of the aircraft from the crash of a Polish Air Force Tu-154 in 2010, for traces of explosives, after being engaged by the Polish government.[8]
Following the split of DERA in 2001 into QinetiQ and Dstl, the Fort Halstead site was retained by QinetiQ who leased part of it back to Dstl. Its most recent principal functions have been research, test, evaluation and forensic analysis into explosives, and the site's explosives laboratory was again used in the investigation following the attempted 21 July 2005 London bombings.[10] The facility has been the largest employer in the Sevenoaks district, with 1,300 personnel working on the site in 2000.
In March 2006, QinetiQ sold the Fort Halstead site to Armstrong Kent LLP for an undisclosed sum,[11] remaining on-site as a tenant. In June 2011, Dstl announced that its facilities at Fort Halstead were to close following a review of operations at the site,[12][13] although delays in building new facilities at Porton Down[14] has meant Dstl finally left in October 2022 (taking eleven rather than the planned five years).[15]
In 2017, Armstrong Kent sold the site to Merseyside Pension Fund.[15] Current plans are for a mixed-use regeneration, with 450 new homes and a business campus, including QinetiQ.[15]
