Steep Holm during the Second World War - see also Island 66

The refortification of Steep Holm and neighbouring Flat Holm began in July 1941 to protect convoy ships lying at anchor in the Bristol Channel waiting for high tide to enable them to unload their cargoes at the various ports along the Severn Estuary.

 On Steep Holm two jetties were constructed, an iron one at the Landing Beach on the east coast and a smaller stone one at South Landing. 

Remains of the wartime jetty at South Landing

Two batteries were built on the top of the island.  Steep Holm North was on the site of the Victorian Summit Battery in the north west of the island and had clear views across to Flat Holm and Lavernock Point on the Welsh coast. Steep Holm South was on the site of Garden Battery in the south east of the island, which had views over the whole of Bridgwater Bay. Each battery had two separate emplacements for 6 inch ex-Navy guns.  The batteries were roofed with “plastic armour”, which was a bituminous cement mixed with flint and granite chippings.

A rocket launcher was constructed at Split Rock Battery.  Observation posts were built at Rudder Rock and Steep Holm South Batteries.

Steep Holm South Battery

Flatholm from the Rudder Rock Observation Post

Remains of the plastic armour on Steep Holm South

Two instrument pillars were built, one at each battery.  Royal Artillery spotters mounted their Depression Range-Finders on them, which enabled them to observe targets and correct the fall of fire.  They were surrounded by blast walls.

Instrument Pill at Steep Holm North Battery

The remains of the inn and Cliff Cottage were demolished to make way for a narrow gauge railway, which was used for winching wagons of sand, cement, supplies and equipment up the Zigzag Path from the Landing Beach to the summit and across the plateau to Steep Holm North Battery.  A separate track was also laid from the South Landing up to the summit. The railway track used had been captured from the Germans on the Western Front during the First World War.  Three winch houses were built at the top of the three sections of the zigzag path.  An open winch was constructed at the top of the path down to the South Landing.  Indian soldiers with mules transported stores from ships to the summit of the island until the narrow gauge railway was completed.   The mules were later used to pull the wagons along the level sections of the narrow gauge railway.

Railway Line up the Zigzag Path

Railway Track to South Landing looking down on the Searchlight Post

Remains of the winch at the top of the path leading to South Landing

Up to 300 men were stationed on Steep Holm during the construction phase. Officers were housed in the Victorian barracks but lower ranks had to live in tents until Nissen huts were constructed. 

Four searchlight posts were built around the island: at South Landing; above Calf Rock; above Rudder Rock and on the north coast to the north east of Steep Holm North Battery. The purpose of these was to look out for German E-boats sailing up the Bristol Channel.  The top of the island was too high to allow the searchlights to pan across the sea, so the searchlight posts were built low on the cliffs.  Long flights of concrete steps had to be built to reach two of them.  There were 120 steps leading down the Rudder Rock searchlight post and 208 steps down to the post on the north coast. The posts and the steps to them were painted with zebra camouflage to disguise them.  Two Generator houses were built to power the searchlights.

Steps down to 208 Steps Searchlight Post

South Landing Searchlight Post

Rudder Rock Searchlight Post

Generator House

Two 3,200 gallon water tanks were erected on the top of the island, one for fresh water and one for salt water.  Water was pumped up to the summit from a supply ship.
The refortification of Steep Holm was completed by October 1942.  However the ex-Navy guns were never needed against enemy ships and they were useless against air attacks.

By the end of 1943 the threat to ships in the Bristol Channel had reduced significantly, so the island was relegated to “care and maintenance” status and most of the troops were moved off the island.

After the end of the Second World War German prisoners of war dismantled and removed most of the railway winches and trolleys and demolished the wartime piers.

Further reading:

Steep Holm at war: Rodney Legg.  Wincanton Press, 1991

The Steep Holm Guide and Trail.  Published by the Kenneth Allsop Memorial Trust, 2014

Steep Holm’s Pioneers: Stan and Joan Rendall. Published by the authors, 2003

Steep Holm’s Inn - see also Island 66

In June 1830 Steep Holm was sold by William Willes to John Baker, a Somerset solicitor.  On the east coast of Steep Holm he built a small harbour around the Landing Beach, an inn just above the high tide level and a cliff side cottage higher up to house boatmen, fisherman and labourers.  Cliff Cottage and the inn were nearing completion by July 1832.  The inn was built of island stone and rendered.  It was three storeys high with a castellated roof balustrade and a small walled garden.  The lower storey was built directly against the rock face.  On the north side a large water catchment tank was built.  In October 1833 John Baker sold the island to Colonel Charles Kemeys Kemeys-Tynte.

Inn and Landing Beach

In the early 1840s John and Betty Harse leased Steep Holm for a few years.  Betty ran the inn while John farmed.

The tenancy of Steep Holm was acquired by Frederick and Mary Harris c1846.  They moved to the island with their children Emily, Mary, Frederick Henry and Rosa.  Fred Harris was an accomplished sailor and he ferried visitors to and from the island in his own boat.  Sailors waiting in the Bristol Channel for high tide to enable them to sail into Bristol or the Welsh ports also frequented the inn.  In 1851 Rosa Harris drowned off Steep Holm, aged 4½ .

In 1854, while on a trip to the Newport area, Fred exchanged his Newfoundland dog for a young Russian bear.  In 1857 the bear severely injured a young Italian governess called Ann Caroline Besozzi, who was visiting the island.  In 1858 a civil action was held at Bristol Assizes to obtain compensation for the governess.  Fred Harris was ordered to pay her £50 in addition to court costs for both sides.  He failed to pay and the following year he was called to Taunton County Court where he pleaded insolvency and the judge believed him, although in reality he had transferred all his assets to other people.
 
In 1859 there was a great storm in the Bristol Channel.  Fred Harris’s boat Mystery was badly damaged and Steep Holm’s harbour wall collapsed, which made it much harder for people to land on the island.  The wall was never rebuilt.
 
In 1866 the inn was enlarged by the building of an adjacent three storey annexe to house workers building the forts on the island.  The inn prospered from 1866-8 with all the extra resident customers.

By 1871 Fred and Mary Harris were managing the Royal Claremont Pier Hotel in Weston-super-Mare, which was renamed Harris’s.  The Steep Holm Inn was being run by Frederick Henry’s wife Ann.  In 1872 their daughter was born on the island.  She was named Beatrice Steep Holmes Anne Cooper Harris.
 
In May 1884 Frederick Henry Harris was summoned to Axbridge Petty Session Court to answer charges of selling alcohol without a licence.  He argued that Steep Holm was not part of Somerset and that in the 38 years his family had run the inn they had never been asked to obtain a licence.  The case was dismissed but the Inland Revenue appealed to the High Court and in 1885 they won.  The Harris family gave up their tenancy of the island the same year but soon after they leased Flat Holm and ran an inn there.
 
Mrs Caroline Davies and her two adult sons Harold and Wallace/Wallis rented Steep Holm in 1885. They ran day excursions and fishing and rabbit shooting trips to the island and also grew crops and raised farm livestock.  However their business was not a success and they sold their stock and equipment to Thomas Henry Waite-Hall from Glastonbury the following year.  The annexe to the inn was probably damaged by a lightning strike on its chimney during his tenancy.  The annexe was patched up but Mr Waite-Hall had left the island by 1891 and the inn was closed for the last time.

By the 1930s the inn was derelict and during the refortification of the island in 1941 the walls of the inn and annexe were demolished to make way for a narrow gauge railway.  The walls were rebuilt and the inn reroofed in the early 1980s by the Kenneth Allsop Trust for use as a wardens’ depot and store but it proved to be too damp to be of much use.

 Annexe ruins at high tide

Annexe Ruins at low tide

 Inn and Annexe ruins at low tide

Inn from the shingle spit at low tide

Denny Island, Bristol Channel

Denny Island is a small rocky island in the middle of the Bristol Channel, three miles north of Portishead and halfway between Avonmouth and Redwick near Newport.  It lies at the southern end of the Bedwin Sands.  These are part of a huge complex of sandbanks collectively known as the Welsh Grounds, which are exposed at low tide. The boundary between England and Wales runs along the southern foreshore of the island, which is located in Monmouthshire for administrative purposes.

In 1373 Edward III granted a charter to Bristol, which made it a county of its own separate from Somerset or Gloucestershire.  Denny Island is referred to in the charter as Dunye.  This may mean that the name meant “island shaped like a hill” in Old English.

Denny Island has an area of 0.24 hectares and is covered in scrub vegetation. It becomes much larger at low tide, due to the Bristol Channel having the second highest tidal range in the world.  Strong tidal currents and the danger of quicksand on a rising tide make the island almost impossible to land on.  Therefore it is extremely unlikely that I will ever set foot on it.

The island provides a roost for seabirds.  Small colonies of cormorants and great black backed gulls and a few pairs of rock pipits nest on the island.

Denny Island from Portishead - a speck on the horizon

Denny Island is on the left hand side of the photo on the horizon

Steep Holm's Victorian Fortifications - see also Island 66

In the 1850s concern grew in Britain about the strength of the French Navy and it was believed that war between France and Britain might be imminent.  Henry John Temple, 3^rd Viscount Palmerston, became Prime Minister for the 2^nd time in 1859. Palmerston and his Secretary of State for War (Sidney Herbert) established a Royal Commission on the Defence of the United Kingdom in 1859 to examine the ability of Britain to defend itself against an attempted invasion by a foreign power and to advise the British Government on the remedial action required.  

The Commission reported back in 1860 and recommended the building of forts to protect naval bases and other strategic locations around the coasts of Britain and Ireland.  In the Bristol Channel Steep Holm, Flat Holm, Brean Down and Lavernock Point were to be fortified in order to protect the ports of Bristol, Cardiff and Newport.

Work began on a barracks on Steep Holm in 1866 and was completed in 1867.  The barracks were built by about 50 local men and Irish navvies under the direction of John Perry of Weston-super-Mare.  Dressed stone was transported from South Wales to build the barracks and gun emplacements.  It was winched or dragged up the cliff, along with all the other building materials needed, from a quay, which was constructed at the South Landing.  Limestone from Steep Holm itself was used for backing and infilling.

Soldiers were housed in the main barracks.  A block on the eastern side contained a kitchen, stores and latrines.  At the western end a master gunner’s quarters were constructed and some additional married quarters. Rainwater was collected from the roof and transferred into an underground reservoir behind the barracks with a capacity of 49,000 gallons.

Six gun batteries were built between 1866 and 1868 and they were armed with 10 seven ton guns in 1871.  The batteries were positioned around the island to give 360 degree coverage of the sea around the island:

•  Rudder Rock Battery at the western end of the island was named after the rock below it.
• Split Rock Battery in the south west was also named after the rock formation below it.  It is the best preserved of the six batteries.
• Summit Battery in the north west was the highest battery at 72 metres above sea level.
• Laboratory Battery in the north east was named after a nearby building, which provided a spark free environment in which gunpowder could be weighed and tested.
• Tombstone Battery in the east was so named because engineers constructing it dug up a 13^th century stone coffin lid or memorial stone associated with the ruins of the nearby Priory of St Michael.
• Garden Battery in the south east was built on what was thought to be part of the medieval priory’s garden. 

Garden, Summit, Laboratory and Split Rock were double batteries, while Rudder Rock and Tombstone were only armed with one cannon each.  All the batteries had underground ammunition stores close to them.

Two lime kilns were built to produce mortar and lime wash for the fortifications.  One was located to the north west of Garden Battery but was destroyed during the 1941 refortification of the island.  The other one at South Landing has been restored. Coal to fire them was brought from South Wales and Steep Holm’s own limestone was used.

Both Viscount Palmerston and Sidney Herbert died before work began on the fortification of Steep Holm.  By the time Steep Holm’s fortifications were completed the threat from the French had diminished. The island’s heavy guns were never fired in anger and the garrison was finally stood down in 1901.

The barracks have now been converted into a visitor centre and exhibition area.  Remains of all 6 batteries can still be seen today, although several of them were partially destroyed during the Second World War refortification of Steep Holm.  Nine of the ten heavy guns can still be seen near their original positions and most of the underground ammunition stores can be explored.

 Laboratory Battery

 Tombstone Battery

West barbette or gun enclosure at Split Rock Battery

The cannon at Rudder Rock Battery proved to be too heavy to move when the Second World War observation post was being built in 1941, so it was left in situ and the observation post was built over the top of it.  It was rediscovered in 1981 by former island warden Rodney Legg.

Displaced racer from the east barbette at Summit Battery.  The wheels of the gun carriage ran on the racer, enabling it to be moved round to face in any direction. The racer was removed from Summit Battery during the 1941 refortification of Steep Holm

This Georgian cannon was taken to Steep Holm in 1866-68 to be buried vertically in the ground, so that the mouth end could act as a pivot for the Victorian guns.  It was dug up in 1941 from Summit Battery when the island was refortified. It was left lying behind the new battery until 1986 when it was lifted into its current position outside the Barracks by a Sea King helicopter from RNAS Yeovilton.  It has found a new use as a perch for some of the Steep Holm’s many gulls. 

 Barracks

 

Restored Lime Kiln at South Landing

Further Reading:

Steep Holm at war: Rodney Legg.  Wincanton Press, 1991

The Steep Holm Guide and Trail.  Published by the Kenneth Allsop Memorial Trust, 2014

Steep Holm’s Pioneers: Stan and Joan Rendall. Published by the authors, 2003