The redoubt at Fort on the Heugh, Holy Island. Photo by Northumberland County Council.

(NU 12954165) Fort (Remains of). (1)

A fort situated at the east end of the Heugh. From an entry in the parish register it is inferred that the date of the construction was 1675.
The ruined walls follow the line of the rock on which it is built so that the form is irregular. On the sides next to the sea there are two walls, but on those towards the island, only one. Within the walls is the ruin of a small tower measuring eight yards by seven, the walls of which are still a few feet above the ground. (2)

Description correct except that the tower is 6.7m square. The outer wall to the south and east is fragmentary but appears to have been a retaining wall to a grass covered platform or berm outside the inner one, which although ruinous, is continuous, with a width of 0.7m and a maximum height of 1.5m. An entrance on the south side gives access to the outer platform. The walls of the tower are 0.8m to 1m thick with a maximum height of 3m. (3)

Condition unchanged. (4)

The Heugh (NU 126416), rocky promontory and look-out point was resistivity surveyed and several structures detected, some may have been pre-Conquest in origin. (5)

Diamond-shaped fort built in 1675. Comparison of the present plan with one of 1742 it can be seen that much of the outer walling has fallen into the sea. (6)

The outer wall of the fort is in poor condition and is being scoured at both ends. Attempts to prevent this with sandbags is not succeeding. Its exposed position is allowing wind and sea erosion of the walls. Being monitored by English Heritage. See slide W11. (7)

Conservation works were carried out during 1994-1995. Consolidation of the fort walls comprised repointing the redoubt. The area between the inner and outer walls on the south side has been remoulded and turfed over after archaeological recording of the exposed and eroding ground surface (see NU 14 SW 27). (8)

A plan of Holy Island fortifications in 1548 shows a small circular banked enclosure on the end of the Heugh in the area now occupied by Osborne's Fort. It may be the remains of a bulwark constructed by Thomas Gower, Berwick upon Tweed's master mason, in 1545.
Osborne's Fort was designed and built by Major Daniel Collingwood and Robert Trollope in 1675. It is believed to have been built in response to the threat of Dutch privateers on the east coast at this time. (9)

Scheduled. (10)

A watercolour of Osborne's Fort dated 1676, with the words 'Osbornes Fort', 'Anno Dom.1676' and 'Trollup fecit' can be discerned. When published in 1994 it was speculated to represent a proposed structure in County Wicklow, but is now correctly attributed to Holy Island. The location of the original watercolour is now unknown. The fort is thought to be named after Thomas Osborne who was predecessor to Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, Lord Treasurer in the Cabal ministry, who built the contemporary 'Clifford's Fort' at North Shields in Tyne and Wear in 1672. (11)(12)

NU 129 416. Fort on the Heugh. Scheduled No ND/298. (13a)

The fort was preceded by a lookout tower built before 1409. (13b)

A post medieval fort is visible as a ruined building on air photographs, centred at NU 1295 4165. The feature is still extant on the latest 2003 NMR oblique photography. (13c)