welcome to a very special exploration
video exploring inside of Horse Sand sea fort
the fort is one of four that were built
in the 19th century to protect
Portsmouth and the Solent against the
threat of French invasion. We had
previously explored St Helens fort a
couple of years back which out of the
four solent forts is both the smallest and
closest to the island. For that visit it was
fairly straightforward and we  just had to
wander out first thing in the morning on
a spring low tide, 
once at the fort climb up it and then
we were straight in through an open
hatch, the only thing that you had to be
mindful of whilst exploring was getting
back in time before the tide changed
although, we were happy to make ourselves 
comfortable and wait out the next low one
Horse Sands was going to be a lot more
complicated, for starters the fort is
about two and a half miles off the coast
of the island surrounded by water and
sandwiched between two busy shipping
channels with strong tidal currents.
As there was not too much in the way of
information about the current state of
the fort, since being decommissioned, we
went to scout it out to try and figure
out if we could get in and how we would
manage it. It was supposed to just be a
recce as we are expecting to have to use
ropes to climb up the outside but as we
approached it looked as though several
of the windows on the first floor were
completely open. Before I could properly
confirm this with my zoom lens Ben had
stripped down to his pants and was
overboard swimming towards the fort
Not wanting to be left out and without
thinking I flung myself in after him
It was cold but after we managed to clamber and scrape ourselves up onto the rusty
landing platform we climbed through one
of the open windows and realized that
the entire fort was open!
now that we'd
established that it was going to be
possible and relatively easy getting in
we just had to work out the logistics of
getting several people with loads of
gear in overnight and without getting
caught this was not easy and took weeks
to arrange luckily a couple of pirates
with the yacht liked the idea and came
to our aid saving the day and making the
trip possible. On the day of the trip we
met up mid-afternoon at the pub and
after a couple of pints we were loading
up the tender and heading to the yacht
the yacht was a lovely well-kept vessel
from the 1960s called Illiya and her
captain was a pirate called Jon
once we were loaded we set sail up the
river and off into the sunset
the conditions out on the water were
calm and without much wind it was going
to take several hours to get to the fort
not that anyone really minded much after
the beers and the run were cracked and
we were happy to enjoy the journey
We were also in no rush
as we needed to arrive at the fort as
late as possible to avoid detection
as dusk turned to night we watched a
thunderstorm looming in the distance
over Portsmouth, thankfully it stayed
away and we arrived at the fort around
11:00 p.m. we anchored up nearby and
began fairing across people and gear in
the tender to the fort. It'd been plain
sailing up until now but something was
about to go very wrong... the first couple
of runs in the tender went smoothly with
Ben calmly running the tender back and
forth between Illiya and the floor as it
came to the last run most of the gear
was on the fort Jon Ben and myself all
quickly headed below deck gathering the
last few bits and to make some
last-minute checks when we returned to
the deck something was missing the
tender was no longer tied to the boat
and she was drifting engine idling
somewhere out in the darkness. We got a
panicked phone call from the others on
the fort who informed us that they just
witnessed the tender drift past with no
one on it, fortunately, though they still
had sight of it and were able to
pinpoint it for us with torches we
frantically pulled up the anchor and set
course for the dinghy when we caught the
boat we breathed a huge sigh of relief
except now the yacht engine wouldn't
start as the rope that wasn't tied to the
boat was now tangled up in the prop of
the yacht Ben and I had to take it in
turns diving under the boat to try and
free the rope each attempt was an
awkward balance of blindly trying to
unravel the rope in one hand whilst
clinging to the rudder with the other
after about 10 attempts exhausted and
scraped by the barnacles we finally get
the Rope free elated we head back to
the original Anchorage and we finally
make the last tender run ensuring this
time that when we get out it is tied very
securely to the platform
we had several hours until first light
so headed up the rusty ladders to the
top most part of the fort where we could 
make the most of the panoramic views and
live the luxury fort life.
Far too excited see as soon as the first glimmer
of light appeared on the horizon I was
off exploring the huge structure
Horse Sands is the joint largest of all of the UK seaforts and was built with 59 gun
emplacements across its two gun floors
The fort was built between 1865 and 1880 by the time the fort had been finished the
threat of a French invasion had
diminished and the technology of the
guns become out-of-date because of this
the fort's were never needed to be used
for their intended purpose and became
known as "Palmerston's follies" after the
Prime Minister who authorized their
construction. The numerous forts built
during this period were the most
extensive and costly fixed defense
structures built in Britain in peacetime
Horse Sands was rearmed during the first
and second world wars and during this
period the Fort was painted in a black
and white checkered paint scheme. It was
painted in this way as a form of
camouflage the purpose being not to make
the fort invisible but instead to
confuse attempts to attack it by making it
difficult to accurately gauge the
distance of the fort
The fort was deactivated after world war two
and used of a coastal artillery up until
1956 in the 1960s the site was declared
surplus to requirement by the Ministry
of Defense but the port remained in
military ownership up until 1993 when it
was purchased by Portsmouth Naval Base Heritage Trust. The trust plan to restore
it and open it to the public but put it
back on the market in 2002 in 2012 the
company who owned the neighboring
forts Spitbank and No Mans announced
that they purchased Horse Sands and they
intended to convert it into a museum
with displays of the history of all
three forts
work was started to clear some of the
debris but the owner put the site back
up for sale in 2016,
however, it failed to make its £875,000
reserve price. Within the last month the
three Solent forts had been collectively
put back on the market for the guide
price of 11 million pounds
as the tide returned we readied
ourselves to depart it had been an amazing
explore but before we left there was one
last thing to do
Filmed and edited by Nick Stotesbury 2018
