Clifford's Fort

Clifford's Fort was a defensive gun battery established near the mouth of the Tyne during the Anglo-Dutch Wars in the 17th century. It subsequently served as a submarine mining depot and survives today as a Scheduled Ancient Monument in the historic Fish Quay area of North Shields, Tyne and Wear, in North East England.

The fort was built in 1672 at the start of the Third Dutch War. An earlier fort had been established on or near the site some thirty years earlier (a somewhat temporary structure consisting of gabions: "baskets filled with sand and mortar, with guns placed between the baskets") but this had been destroyed in action in 1644. (It was paired with a similar fort on the south bank of the river, which had been established by the Marquis of Newcastle in 1642.)

Named after Lord Clifford of Chudleigh ('Clifford of the Cabal'), the new fort was built to the designs of Anglo-Swedish engineer Martin Beckman. It consisted of a raised platform, walled and with a three storey redoubt, protecting a low riverside gun battery, defended to landward by a bastioned trace. It was initially armed with thirty cannons: twenty 20-pounders and ten 10-pounders.

Clifford's Fort was, from its beginnings, associated with the long-established nearby defences of Tynemouth Castle, and the Governor of Tynemouth had oversight of the Fort through until 1839. By the time the fort was built, however, the castle had fallen into a ruinous state and the fort therefore took over as the main defender of the river.

...
Wikipedia