Major Blanshard has, in obedience to your Grace's instructions, projected a larger work than was originally intended for Retreat Hill. It is an hexagonal Redoubt of 30 yards at either end and 50 yards each side, adapted to the figure of the hill, with a Keep and Reverse Fires for the defence of the Ditch, but as this hill is small and its slope too steep to be formed as a Glacis, it has been thought expedient to circumscribe the counterscarp by an envelope which by means of collateral defences will see the slope of the hill.

¿ Col. Edward Fanshawe, RE, Report on the Defences of Bermuda, 1826

With the destruction by implosion of the old Holiday Inn/Club Med a couple of weeks ago, the stage was dramatically rearranged for tourism at the East End of Bermuda and hopefully for the historic forts that were given over as part of the hotel concession in the 1960s.

The site included Forts Victoria and Albert, named after the British monarch and her husband after she, Victoria, ascended the throne in 1937 and married Albert in 1941. Later on, after Albert transitioned to the great fortification in the sky, Queen Victoria was apparently friendly with a man called Brown, but that translated not into any fort of that name, at least in Bermuda.

Victoria's assumption of the monarchy also marked the heyday of the Industrial Revolution and the massive expansion of the British Empire (of which Bermuda was the first island settlement), which vaulted England into the foremost global power ever known. Her reign also signalled the end of cannonballs and the beginning of the modern arms race in fortifications, armies and ships.

It was also the most intensive period of fort-building at Bermuda, which resulted in the completion of the defences of the Dockyard and the erection of Forts George, William (Western Redoubt), Albert (Eastern Redoubt), Victoria, Catherine and Cunningham. This building spree would remain without precedent in Bermuda until the American Forces constructed the Naval Operating Base in Southampton and Fort Bell/Kindley Field in the 1940s.

The Dockyard was the largest of the fortifications, covering up to ten acres of works, while Fort Victoria was next in size but perhaps first in complexity and architectural cohesiveness. It was described thus in a defence report of 1857 in the final decade of the smooth-bore cannon, soon to be replaced with rifled guns and projectiles in place of cannonballs, at the start of the arms race.

"Fort Victoria is about 2191 yards from Fort Cunningham, and from its commanding position (about 52 feet above Fort Albert) in every direction may be considered the citadel of St. George's, with reference to either Land or Sea Attack. Its form is an irregular oblong with a Ravelin to each of its two long North and South faces, it contains bombproof cover for 6 Officers and 194 Men; with Tanks, Powder Magazines, provisions and Artillery Stores, &c., separated by a deep ditch flanked by reverse fires from an envelope, carrying on its ramparts and Ravelins (again surrounded by deep ditches covert ways, and good glacis), 18, 24 Pounders, 2, 18 Pounders, and 2, 8 inch Mortars, the guns (except in the 2, 18 Pdrs which are on ground platforms) all mounted on iron traversing platforms, and bearing in every direction; seawards, on the Ship Channel at a minimum distance of about 1000 yards, up to the eastern entrance at about 2500 yards, on part of Murray's Anchorage at about 1800 yards; and the Naval Tanks at about 500 yards; on the town and St. George's Harbour, up to its inner entrance by Fort Cunningham. With Fort Albert, which it commands at 248 yards, it commands and supports Fort Catherine at 400 yards. It also commands the Western Redoubt at 220 yards, and the Barrack Hill and crosses its fire with that of Fort George (1000 yards) on St. George's Harbour; and it sweeps the whole tongue of land forming the eastern end of St. George's Island, up to Fort Cunningham."

This was an apt description of a magnificent building: Fort Victoria was without a doubt the most elaborate fortification in Bermuda in the 1850s. When seen by Col. Roger Willock, USMC, (whose Bulwark of Empire was the first book on Bermuda's forts) in the early 1930s, it was very much the building designed by Thomas Blanshard and its South Ravelin was well preserved, as were many other features.

The casemated roof of the Keep, however, had its parapet removed to roof level, around 1905, when the new 9.2-inch rifles were installed, one of which was the "welcoming arms" in front of the Holiday Inn, for the authorities would not allow of its removal in the 1960s.

They and the architects of the day, however, did permit the destruction of the Keep, an extraordinary four-storey historical monument. It was replaced by the heritage of a swimming pool and a nightclub, both unsuccessful creations, architecturally and otherwise. Shuttering for the pool must have burst, for a lava flow of concrete cascaded into one of the counterscarp galleries of the inner ditch through its gunports and down the approach stairs!

Entered by eight drawbridges, the Keep would have made one of the finest military museums in the British Commonwealth, but instead the very thing that discerning visitors travel to see-the heritage of a place-was consigned to the oblivion of the airport dump, or some other trash heap. (The next best site for such a necessary museum in Bermuda is the Western Redoubt, commonly called the "Gunpowder Cavern".)

The gun terreplein, outer ditch and other features survived, although some modifications were made when the US Army installed two fixed 6-inch guns on the eastern side of the fort and glacis in 1942.

Now the future of Forts Victoria and Albert is again in question, but it is hoped at long last that the apparent disconnect between tourism and built-heritage will finally be replaced with the magnetism that is the fundamental attraction between satisfied visitors and heritage preservation and presentation.

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Dr. Edward Harris, MBE, JP, FSA, Bermudian, is the Executive Director of the Bermuda Maritime Museum. This article represents his opinions and not necessarily those of persons associated with the Museum. Comments can be sent to drharrislogic.bm or by telephone to 332-5480.