in the west-facing open battery. They were mounted on special garrison carriages to absorb their recoil and could be trained using traverse rails to alter their direction of fire. In 1895 two 6-pdr. quick-firing (QF) guns were installed on the fort; they were intended to protect a minefield that would be installed in the river in the event of war. Searchlights were also installed in separate emplacements to the west of the fort. Around the same time, a submarine mining establishment was constructed, also located to the west of the fort. At some point between 1895 and 1907, Shornemead Fort was disarmed. Subsidence had made it structurally unsafe for its emplaced guns to be fired, and it was in any case strategically redundant by that point. It was used for a time by the Thames Militia Division (Submarine Miners), Royal Engineers, as a training facility linked with the nearby submarine mining depot. It was temporarily re-armed in 1913 with two 12-pdr. QF guns in emplacements outside the fort and again in 1941 when it was designated as an emergency battery. Two 5.5-inch naval guns were installed in the same emplacements as the 1913 guns, east of the fort, with concrete gun houses protecting them. An embarkation hard was constructed on the riverside below the fort to support the D-Day operation. Aerial photographs from the time show the battery, fort, associated concrete pillboxes and searchlights surrounded by dense tangles of barbed wire. The fort was reduced to care and maintenance status in November 1943, while the battery was deactivated in 1945 and demolished around 1976. The barrack accommodation of Shornemead Fort was used for many years by soldiers training on the nearby Milton rifle range. A permanent staff was based at the fort, and the barracks included lecture rooms, staff accommodation and even a swimming pool built to the east of the fort. The fort was abandoned after the end of World War II and was demolished in the 1960s by the Army Demolition School of the Royal Engineers as part of a training exercise. The staff accommodation and remains of the mining establishment were demolished in the 1970s. Current status The fort is now in a mostly destroyed condition with only the front of the casemates standing above ground. Some tidying-up has been performed, but the ruins are vulnerable to vandalism. Nothing remains of the barracks and administrative buildings of