I took a boat trip to the Maunsell sea forts in the Thames Estuary #sea #history #ww2 #fyp #fort

Added: 2026-05-20

[00:00:00]Last week I managed to finally go to the Maunsell Forts that you can find in the middle of the Thames Estuary. I've been going to Whitstable and Herne Bay ever since I was little and you could see them out in the sea. I always used to wonder what they were. What they actually are is defensive sea forts from World War II, named after their inventor, Guy Maunsell. Not sure about the pronunciation here, I'm going by what I've seen on the internet. We used Whitstable Boat Trips, not an advert for them, I'm not being paid, but they were very good. We attempted to go one time before a few weeks ago, but it was too windy. But we're good this time and it was incredibly speedy, a very fast catamaran. Quite chaotic on the way there, trying to not lose my phone overboard. Took about 20 minutes to get there. They don't seem to be getting nearer for ages and then suddenly they're right there. The boat stopped at sort of all sides of them to get the best views. The one with the flag on was the one that was used for pirate radio.

[00:00:39]Originally 38 were planned, but only 21 ever got built. They were laid out in a sort of circular shape. This meant if you put a gun on top of each one, that it would have full coverage to be able to see 360° around the Estuary. This way they could catch a lot of the enemy aircraft as they flew down the river.

[00:00:53]This is one of two lots in the Thames Estuary. The other ones are slightly further out into the channel. This gave them double the chance to take down the planes. There were actually a few built in Liverpool as well in the Mersey, but they were taken down in the '50s to stop ships hitting them. They were constructed completely on land and brought out here by barge and then sunk and attached to the sea floor. As you can see from the old photos, they would have had walkways between them as well.

[00:01:12]Sadly, they've been uh declared too unsafe to go inside anymore. But I found some of these pictures of what it was like inside. There's a huge amount of wind turbines nearby and on the way back the boat pulled up really close to one.

[00:01:23]It's actually crazy how big they are. I follow an electrician who works on these on Instagram and it looks like an awesome job.