Fort Pitt, Kent

51°22′51.66″N 0°30′50.63″E / 51.3810167°N 0.5140639°E / 51.3810167; 0.5140639

Fort Pitt from Fort Amherst, 1838. The tower (centre) and blockhouse (right) are now demolished, but the hospital building (left) is extant.

Fort Pitt is a Napoleonic era fort on the high ground of the boundary between Chatham and Rochester, Kent.

A fort on the site was proposed as early as 1779 by Hugh Debbieg, then Chief Engineer at Chatham. In 1783 the land was purchased by the Board of Ordnance and 4.5 million bricks were deposited there in preparation for construction. (Nothing immediately followed, however, and the bricks were instead used for the rebuilding of the Lines).[1]

The fort was finally built between 1805 and 1819. At that point, the Napoleonic Wars having ended, it ceased being manned as a fort and instead became an important military hospital. In the 1820s-50s it was the only General (as opposed to regimental) Military Hospital in England,[2] and, until the opening of Netley Hospital in 1863, it was considered the de facto Headquarters of the Army Medical Department.[3] Fort Pitt Hospital closed in the 1920s, since when the surviving buildings have housed a girls' grammar school.[4]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference HistEng was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Burdett, Sir Henry C. (1893). Hospitals and Asylums of the World: Hospitals. London: J. & A. Churchill. pp. 722–723.
  3. ^ Hobbes, R. G. (1895). Reminiscences of Seventy Years' Life, Travel and Adventure (vol. II). London: Elliot Stock. p. 197.
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference KAR was invoked but never defined (see the help page).