Overview
- Savills has listed Fort Darnet for an early December auction with a guide price of about £50,000, marking its first sale in roughly four decades.
- The fort occupies a private island near Hoo in Kent and can only be reached by boat or kayak.
- Built between 1870 and 1872 by the Royal Commission to guard approaches to Chatham dockyard, it was decommissioned before World War I and later used as a World War II observation post.
- The site is a Scheduled Monument under the 1979 Ancient Monuments Act, so any works would require consent and potential redevelopment would be subject to planning permission.
- Savills describes the structure as in fair condition with a partially flooded lower magazine, and reports note sunken barges at the site believed to be wartime relics, with the exact number varying.