Fort Pitt in war and in peace: Chapter Nine : The Site of Fort Pitt in the 21st century.

In 2001 the Fort Pitt school celebrated the history of the site it occupied in the form of a series of stained glass panels placed in the foyer, designed by local artist Shelly Kitto.

Left to right :

3. Star-shaped Fort with blockhouse

4. The central tower

5. The first Hospital building 1828 – 32 with patient being bandaged

6. Garrison personnel

7. Canon dredged from the River Medway representing the Fort artillery

8. Hospitalised Crimean War veterans

16. Roses for peace

17. Squirrels for life

2. Hillside with wildlife before the Fort was built

9. Asylum opened in 1857 for patients with mental disorders

10. Florence Nightingale in attendance at the Army Medical School

14. The replacement building after the fire in 1973, the Sackett Wing

13. The School fire in 1973 in the roof of the once hospital administration building

11. First World War soldiers bound for Fort Pitt, suffering from gas attack

15. School activities in 2001

18. Bees for pain

19. Apples for health

It is only in this century that Fort Pitt has gained full recognition as a site of considerable historical interest. In 2007, working for Historic England, Magnus Alexander undertook a survey which was published as a 35 page Report under the title : ‘FORT PITT, CHATHAM, KENT. AN EARTHWORK ANALYSIS OF JACKSON RECREATION GROUND’ which readers can access on line. (link)

It stated that: ‘The purpose of the survey was to determine the extent of earthworks of the Napoleonic Fort Pitt which lay immediately to the east in order to inform designation advice and future management’. It recorded that : ‘To the west, on Jackson Recreation Ground, there are substantial earthworks, including traces of the fort’s counterscarp bank, remains of an earthwork leading towards Delce Tower and evidence for the development of the recreation ground and Second World War defensive works’. It said : The survey : ‘also contributed to the on-going research in support of a potential application for Chatham to become a candidate World Heritage Site’.

The year 2009 was also an important date in the history of Fort Pitt because in that year Historic England gave it ‘Scheduled Monument’ Status. (link)

The Report stated :

‘Fort Pitt was an essential component of the early C19 defences of Chatham Dockyard, the security of which was critical for national defence. The fort is significant for its form, representing a combination of tried-and-tested as well as experimental design represented by the bastioned trace and the central tower-keep respectively and as such has national significance in the development of C19 fixed defences’.

‘Fort Pitt's hospital role was also of national significance. Although its hospital use continued until after the First World War, perhaps its most significant phase was in the early to mid C19 with almost all soldiers invalided to Britain from the colonies passing through its care. It was also the home of Florence Nightingale's first Army Medical School in the 1860s. The remains of Fort Pitt are of national importance given the degree of survival, archaeological potential, form of the defences and for the historical interest of the hospital phase. The Fort is also an important component of the wider Chatham defensive landscape which has international claims to significance’.

The 21st century also brought structural changes to the site of Fort Pitt. In 2009, the ‘Mid Kent College’, which had been built in the area of the defensive ditch on the southern flank of Fort Pitt was demolished and the site was developed as a housing estate, accessed off the City Way and known as ‘The Fort’.

Given the fact that, in the 19th century Fort Pitt Military Hospital was a centre scientific research and the home of the first Army Medical School, it seems fitting that this History of Fort Pitt should end with reference to the new science block and with new sixth form accommodation opened on the site of the School in 2018. The architects, McCormack Young LLP said : ‘The challenge for HMY was to find the most suitable location creating least impact for a large building on the site. Sitting in a very prominent position above the towns of Chatham and Rochester, and with significant above and below ground heritage assets including a network of subterranean tunnels and caverns from the original military fort on the site meant that there were few suitable locations for the new science centre that would support both the working of the school and respect the heritage of the site’.

In the event the chosen final location for the building was to the rear of the main school between the 1830’s-built classroom block to the east and the red-bricked, 1910-built classroom block to the west. In the construction, which involved the demolition of the existing sixth form block, the two-storeyed building used terracotta rain screen cladding chosen to reflect the orange brickwork of the adjacent 1910 block, both in colour and proportions.

Also in 2009 the School undertook its biggest change since its occupation of the site in 1927 when control of the School was transferred to the ‘Fort Pitt Grammar School Academy Trust’ and five years later Trust merged with The Thomas Aveling School to form 'The Fort Pitt Thomas Aveling Academies'.

The site of Fort Pitt in 2024

Left to right

The tennis courts. Created by the School after 1931, when the Fort ditch on the eastern flank of the School was levelled and following the line of the still-existing, tree-lined, brick wall of the scarp face of the ditch. At the top of the ditch and marked as '12', the Sports Hall opened in the 1990s.

Marked ‘13 Crimea’. The oldest remaining surface building with classrooms and grade II listed. Opened as a Hospital block in 1832. Site of Queen Victoria’s three visits to soldiers wounded in the Crimean War in 1855.

Slightly to the right of the marker ‘10 West Wing’, was the Hospital wing built in 1910 and using up-to-date medical practice and equipment, it handled many of the 89,000 casualties treated at the Hospital from 1914-18, during the First World War. King George and Queen Mary visited the patients there in 1916.

Marked ‘8 Modern Foreign Languages H Block’. Opened as a ward block the later 19th century also handled First World War patients.

Marked ‘9 Psychology Block’. Another late Victorian addition to the Hospital and used as a Stores and Dining Room. Below the ground, in the vicinity of ‘5 Old Science Building’ : The Fort’s underground chambers to store its ammunition, still in existence but not accessible, Grade II listed and built between 1805 and 1813.

Marked ‘6 Music House’ and Grade II listed. The Hospital's Asylum for patients with mental illness and built in 1847. The north west boundary of the School following the line of the Fort’s north-western corner bastion.

Three things have struck me in researching and composing ‘A History of Fort Pitt’ a second time around and almost 50 years after the first, which was done in the 1970s when I was a young History teacher at the School. The first relates to the sheer pleasure it has been to have had so many digital sources of information at my disposal and to use them to expand and enhance my original History. The second pertains to the fact that, this time round, I have been struck with how each new set of residents of Fort Pitt have used the resources left behind by the previous incumbents :

* When the original Fort was handed over to the first hospital in 1814, hospital patients were housed in the dry casemates in the massive defensive blockhouse. Drinking water was drawn from the well in the Tower and water for washing from the underground reservoir. The chambers which had housed the Fort’s magazine became the home of the Hospital’s Museum of Anatomical Specimens.

* When the Army Medical School was opened in 1860, a hospital ward became a lecture theatre and another, an operating ‘theatre’.

* When the Army Medical Service handed over the Hospital to the School in 1929, the wards in the 1830 and 1910-built blocks, as well the ‘Asylum’ and the two later Victorian single storey ward blocks, were converted into classrooms, a school hall and a gym.

* The Head Teacher took over the office of the Commanding Officer, the Hospital kitchen became the School kitchen and toilet and washing facilities were all ready to be used by the pupils.

* The most dramatic example of this utilisation of old resources came in the Second World War when, during an air raid, the whole school, seeking protection, descended into the underground chambers which in 1810 had provided storage for the magazine of the Fort.

* * * * * * * * *

Any research of Fort Pitt will reinforce the awareness that, as a site, it is completely unique in that no other has had in succession, a military, medical and educational history. In addition, no other site has left behind so much fascinating evidence as to how the new incumbents, with great ingenuity, utilized the facilities left behind by their predecessors.

John Cooper

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