Crimean War, Haslar Barracks was converted to serve as a garrison hospital (the New Barracks having by then opened in nearby Gosport); it became known as Haslar Military Hospital. Thirty years later, the site reverted to barrack use: from 1892 until 1939 it was occupied by the Royal Engineers, during the Second World War an Anti-aircraft Brigade occupied the site, then the Royal Army Ordnance Corps did so in the early 1950s. Thereafter, the site was handed over to the Home Office and became a prison, serving latterly as Haslar Immigration Removal Centre. The Centre closed down in 2017. Through all the various uses of the site, the original buildings had remained in use and their layout intact; in 2017 it was designated a Conservation Area by Gosport Borough Council. Haslar Gunboat Yard and the Admiralty Experiment Works The strip of land between the hospital and the creek is occupied by the former Haslar Gunboat Yard, opened in 1856 to house the Royal Navy's coastal gunboats. A single patent slip was used to launch the boats into Haslar Creek, and to haul them out again on a cradle which ran on railway tracks; a locomotive-driven traverser then delivered the boat (still in its cradle) to its place in the row of cast iron boat sheds (ten of which still stand, parallel to the creek - at one time there were fifty in total). A small stationary steam engine mounted on the traverser platform drove an endless screw, which was then used to slide the boat back into its shed. After a series of expansions and contractions, as gunboats went in and out of vogue in naval circles, the Yard closed in 1906; but from 1912–1973 the site continued to provide storage and maintenance facilities for small vessels of various types. During the Second World War it formed part of HMS Hornet, the adjacent Coastal Forces base; and when Hornet was decommissioned (in 1957) the Yard became an adjunct of the Admiralty Small Craft Experimental Works (see below). Haslar closed for good as a Boat Yard after the construction of a new Haslar Bridge, which prevented craft from sailing up the creek. The site is currently unused, but substantially intact; as well as the boat sheds, it contains a pair of guard houses flanking the gateway, several workshops and the former boiler house with its prominent chimney. (Steam from the boilers