Britain is littered with bizarre features that would never have existed were it not for heavy capital investment in the defence of the Realm. Whilst schools and hospitals compete against each other - and private business - for public funding, one must question whether Britain’s military spending is fully justified. During the current illegal and counter-productive conflict, I have often momentarily thought not - until astonishing legacies of military activity have presented themselves before me. These revelations have been numerous, and come always without disappointment.

The Gosport peninsula, a triangular area of land enclosing the western side of Portsmouth Harbour, is particularly rich in such things. Impressive derelict forts that have never seen action, a large aircraft hangar with no runways, old town ramparts, a ‘secret’ military intelligence school, a submarine escape training water-tower and a vast Georgian military hospital. These are just a few of the wonders on offer. All can be enjoyed by the casual onlooker more for the queries that they pose than any assurances that they might deliver.

Many military structures have a highly attractive pointlessness. They are neither useful nor decorative. This obviously provides great interest and value to the aesthete. The structure pictured here, which I have taken the liberty of fondly naming the ‘Browndown Mushroom’, is a perfect example. A brutal concrete fabrication, some twenty-five feet tall, it stands isolated on the extensive shingle beach that is Browndown Military Training Area. Perhaps some kind of vent, the mushroom’s gills are of steel mesh - and it is definitely not a platform. Its original purpose a total mystery, this entity has the power to perplex, impress and amuse all at once. Whilst delighting in such things, one can be absolutely satisfied that corpulent military spending should never be challenged.

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Posted by David P on January 16, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (8)

Portsmouth, or Portsea Island - to give the land mass its geographical title - is most definitely an island, of about three by four miles. It is completely surrounded by water, with sea to the south and harbours to the east and west. To the north is a wide defensive creek. The encapsulating water is bridged by only three roads as links to the mainland. Officially the City includes sprawling suburbs on the mainland, but no local would consider these as part of Portsmouth proper. It therefore has the most clearly defined boundaries imaginable. This gives Portsmouth a unique atmosphere. It is unlike any other place in Britain.

In 1986 and 87, when I should have been at Portsmouth College of Art, I used the time much more fruitfully to develop an understanding of the craft of Urban Exploration. Day after day I cycled and paced the streets of Portsmouth in a quest to satisfy my appetite for experience of the mundane, the forgotten, the empty, the overlooked and the decaying. I craved old-fashioned shops, derelict buildings, odd bits of cobbled street, faded signs, brutal concrete, curious iron rings set into walls, ruins, relics and the obvious hypocrisies of the planning system. All of this is to be found in most places if one just takes the trouble to look - and I looked at Portsmouth. Unfortunately some of these things have now gone, but the strange, unused motorway junction at Tipner remains unchanged some twenty years on.

Until the mid-seventies there were only two roads on and off of the Island. Then came the M27 south-coast motorway, with its spur, the M275, bringing a third connection that penetrated deep into Portsmouth's western flank. The western side of Portsea Island is dominated by the Naval Dockyard, but to its north is the tiny peninsular of Tipner. Tipner is best known locally for the Greyhound Stadium, and a vast scrap yard, not so long ago a treasure trove of wartime military vehicles, tanks, submarines and ships, but unfortunately now largely cleared. There is also ex-MOD derelict land with strange boarded-up buildings, an MOD rifle range, a sailing club and a small council estate - all bleak and windblown by the constant breeze from the nearby water.

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Posted by David P on December 27, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (6)

Ibsley Control Tower combines so much that is of interest to those appreciative of atmosphere. Ibsley was a very busy RAF airfield in the last proper war. It was the location for a morale-boosting wartime movie starring David Niven, and was taken over by the Americans in 1943. Ibsley played a major role in the D-Day invasion. It survived for precious few years, the airfield having been lost, almost entirely, to gravel abstraction. All that is left is a ruined and forlorn watch office (control tower) surrounded by lakes, now known as Mockbeggar Lakes, with wooded islands.

There is undeniable atmosphere, and a definite sense of foreboding due to graffiti and drug-related litter suggesting regular use as a rendezvous for illicit nocturnal activity - which seems all the more strange when one considers the affluent and respectable New Forest village setting. Looking closely at the daubed and battered walls it is just possible to make out three forces' sweethearts painted by US airmen. Well meaning plans to save and restore the building have come to nothing and, unfortunately, its complete demise seems imminent. Ibsley Tower is on private land belonging to the gravel company, but its isolation and neglect would suggest that trespass for the sake of curiosity is unlikely to be a problem.

It can be viewed lawfully from the north-western most corner of Fir Walk, public access woodland a quarter of a mile to the south of the village of Mockbeggar, which itself is just off the A338, about two miles north of Ringwood.

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Posted by David P on December 07, 2007 | Permalink