Sandown Barrack Battery – now Battery Gardens housing the Poo Museum – was yet another Island fort built to protect England from the French invasion that never came.
This Royal Commission fortification was constructed in response to the 1859 Royal Commission report on the defence of the United Kingdom, following the strengthening of the French navy. These fortifications were the largest maritime defence programme since the reign of Henry VIII in the 16th century. Altogether, some 70 forts and barracks were built throughout England.
Foreign Secretary Palmerston was the politician most closely associated with the building of the forts, few of which ever fired a gun in anger, hence their popular nickname ‘Palmerston’s Follies’.
The structures and earthworks of Sandown Barrack battery retain many of their original fixtures and fittings and represents 1 of the best preserved Palmerston Folly, providing us with historic insight into Victorian military architecture, engineering and strategy.
Sandown Barrack Battery was 1 of 3 batteries the Royal Commission recommended be built around Sandown Bay to prevent seaborne landings. Construction started in 1861, and it was completed in 1863 at a cost of £6,233 (over £650,000 in today’s values).
The battery was situated on the edge of a cliff with its sides and rear protected by a dry moat. Entry to the battery on the landward side was through a drawbridge. Buildings in the battery included a cookhouse, guardroom, artillery store, smith’s shop, machine gun store, coal bunker and shell store. Initially, the major armaments on site were 5 7-inch rifled breech loader guns set in concrete emplacements.
Armaments were frequently upgraded. In October 1890, 2 10-inch RML (rifled muzzle loading) were taken from Sandown Granite Fort (now Wildheart Animal Sanctuary) for mounting at Sandown Barrack Battery, a distance of over a mile. The teams of horses could only pull the 18-ton guns with considerable difficulty.
A contemporary newspaper report stated:
“Difficulties connected with the moving of heavy ordnance were experienced when one of the 18-ton guns with its carriage, weighing about four tons in addition, were taken from the Granite Fort the Barrack Battery by a detachment of the Royal Artillery. Starting from the fort with ten horses, for a time all went well, but when near the coastguard station, the wheels sank to a depth of six or eight inches.
“Four more horses were procured, men were set to work with levers and winches, and after some considerable delay they were able to proceed. Half way up the Beachfield-road, the ground again gave way, and three more horses were attached, but it was fully two hours before the journey was resumed.”
Sandown Barrack Battery was partially reconstructed in the 1890s with the completion of underground magazines. A pair of breech loading 6 inch naval guns were added to the battery, followed by 12 pounder quick firing naval guns.
However, the battery was rapidly became obsolescent in 20th century conditions. 1n 1905, the 12 pounders were decommissioned followed by the 6 inch guns in 1910.
Sandown Barrack Battery was decommissioned after World War I, with all gun parts removed by 1926. The land on which it stood was then sold to Sandown Town Council. By 1931 it had been transformed into a pleasure garden by unemployed Welsh miners at a cost of £3,000 (£172,000 in today’s values).
The Portsmouth Evening News reported on 13th June 1931:
“The guns of Barrack Battery at Sandown which for years have belched shells out over the sea have now given place to artistic rockeries and floral borders. A complete transformation has been effected.”
However, the transformation of the former military site had not been without difficulties.
J. Harman, Chairman of Sandown Town Council, was reported to have said:
“It was impossible to break up the the gun mountings with sledgehammers and pick, and they had to resort to a pneumatic drill. As a number of ratepayers protested against the noise the hours of working had to be restricted, and the consequent delay had increased the expenditure.”
In 2022 the National Poo Museum moved along the coast from its previous site at the former Granite Fort to take residence in Sandown Barrack Battery.
The Battery Gardens are also home to a resident population of common wall lizards, usually only found on the continent of Europe but able to thrive on the Isle of Wight due to its comparatively mild climate.
The Battery Gardens have sadly suffered from vandalism and neglect over recent years as reported by Island Echo.
The Facebook Group Friends of Sandown Battery Gardens is dedicated to those who wish to preserve the beauty and tranquillity of the park.
It could only happen on the Isle of Wight
a Poo Museum.