Publication Account
Date 1997
Event ID 1017003
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1017003
The substantial remains of this impressive fort have been surrounded by modern Lerwick, but, when it was built in the 17th century, it stood isolated and forbidding on a cliff to the north of the village, with its gun-ports looming over Bressay Sound. Because its fire-power had to be concentrated along its east side, the plan of the fort is less regularly geometric on plan than was normal; it is roughly pentagonal, with a massive seaward wall which is angled rather than straight in order to increase the range of the nine gun-ports massed along it. Each of the five bastions set at the angles of the rest of the fort-wall was also provided with gun-ports, up to a maximum of five in the west bastion. Although the building of the fort began in 1665 (designed by no less a man than John Mylne, Master Mason to King Charles I1), it was burnt by the Dutch in 1673 and lay in disrepair for more than a century until 1782 when it was renovated by the Chief Engineer for North Britain and renamed Fort Charlotte in honour of the Queen. The 18th-century fort had three gates, with the main gate between the west and south-west bastions, and a gun-track led from the north gate out to the Knab headland, the first formal road to be built in Shetland. Within the fort, on three sides of a central parade-ground, were built accommodation blocks. The main west block provided barracks for the garrison, with officers' quarters in the projecting bays at either end, the north block consisted of ground-level kitchen and stores and first-floor accommodation for the Commanding Officer, and the south block held guard-rooms and artillery stores.
For a time in the mid 19th century, Lerwick's prison was within the fort buildings. Between 1881 and 1910, Fort Charlotte acted as a training centre for the Royal Naval Reserve, providing a reserve body of seamen trained in gunnery. The fort was 'rearmed' in 1995, when Historic Scotland installed four replica 18-pounder cannons of 18th-century type on the original gun-platforms. The Shetland Field Studies Trust is now housed in the old fort, with a small display of natural history.
Information from ‘Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: Shetland' (1997).
