Shivering Sands Army Fort

Shivering Sands Army Fort
Thames estuary
Shivering Sands Army Fort in 2006
Location in the Thames Estuary
Coordinates	51°29.95′N 1°4.48′E / 51.49917°N 1.07467°E / 51.49917; 1.07467
Type	Offshore, anti-aircraft fortress
Site history
Built	1943
In use	1943-1958
Battles/wars	World War II Cold War

Shivering Sands Army Fort [U7] was a

The towers were built on land and floated out in 1943. Later in the war, the equipment was replaced, and removed soon after. The forts were abandoned in 1958. In the 1960s, some weather equipment was installed in the searchlight tower. On 7 June 1963, a boat called the Ribersborg collided with one of the towers, which fell into the sea without harming anyone or sinking the boat.

In 1964

In 1990, the top of the searchlight tower was cut away so that helicopters could be used to maintain the weather equipment inside. In 1992, it was decided that the tower was no longer necessary for the continued operation of the instruments contained within, and a large buoy was placed next to the tower for the same purpose.

In August and September 2005, artist Stephen Turner spent six weeks living alone in the searchlight tower of the Shivering Sands Fort, in what he described as "an artistic exploration of isolation, investigating how one's experience of time changes in isolation, and what creative contemplation means in a 21st-century context".^[3][4]

Cultural references

The forts, filmed from a North Sea ferry, appear in the 1984 music video for the song "A Sort of Homecoming" by the Irish pop music band U2. ^[5]

The British indie band,

Science fiction writer Sheila Finch's novella Not This Tide used the Shivering Sands fort as one of its settings.^[6]

References