Bembridge Fort is fast becoming one of the Isle of Wight’s most distinctive cultural venues – and a major heritage project – just 15 months after a new charitable trust took over the Palmerston-era stronghold.
When the County Press visited the fort last year, the all-volunteer Bembridge Fort Trust had only recently signed a 21-year lease with the National Trust, with hopes to transform the locked-up, crumbling site into a community hub and tourist attraction.
Now, the fort is hosting open days, guided tours, club events and evening performances in a newly created 70-seat underground theatre, carved out of the former Victorian gunpowder magazine.
The low-lit, vaulted space - 'The 1867 Bar' - is gaining a reputation as a “centre of excellence” for arts events, from jazz to immersive theatre.
Jazz events have been selling out as audiences descend below ground to hear live music in what the trust describes as “stumbling into a secret speakeasy designed by a history buff, who has excellent taste in acoustics.”
The trust has also been working on ‘Murder in the Fort’, a 1940s-set live murder mystery, in which every guest becomes part of the story.
It is also preparing to welcome magician and storyteller Greg Chapman’s Discovery of Witchcraft for a run of shows that mix magic, history, and comedy.
A broader programme of music, drama, storytelling and themed nights is also in development, with organisers Dan and Verity building a full season of events through 2026 and beyond.
Behind the scenes, a major funding package is about to trigger the next phase of physical restoration.
At the end of last year, the Bembridge Fort Trust secured a £250,000 grant from The National Lottery Heritage Fund to help secure the fort’s long-term future and develop it as a nationally important heritage and visitor destination.
The grant, as well as money raised through fundraising, will be used for vital structural work to make the buildings safe, protect rare internal features, tackle water ingress and reverse decades of deterioration across the Victorian fortress.
Plans include bringing the original officers’ quarters, parade ground and other historic areas back into community, education and event use, opening up spaces that have been locked away or too fragile to access for many years.
Although exceptionally poor weather this year has delayed some of the on-site work, planning approvals and contractors are now in place, with work due to restart imminently.
Trustees say every pound raised is being reinvested in the fort, with the aim of ensuring the structure – built between 1863 and 1867 to guard Sandown Bay during a feared French invasion – will still be standing, and in active community use, in another 150 years.
Alongside brick-and-mortar repair, the fort’s team is embarking on an ambitious push to uncover and share its lesser-known stories.
A second National Lottery grant of £10,000 will support a new research project titled ‘Forgotten People, Lost Technologies’.
With additional funds from donors, the initiative will bring together volunteers, schools, historical, and community groups to explore the lives and technologies linked to Bembridge Fort.
Workshops, events, and tours will invite Islanders to contribute memories, photographs and documents connected not only to the fort itself, but also neighbouring defences, including Yaverland Battery.
Work over the past year has already identified more than 55 people who served at or were closely associated with Bembridge Fort across its 150-year history, forming the basis of a planned ‘living archive’ and new exhibitions, including online interpretation using AI and other media.
New research has also highlighted the site’s pivotal wartime role, revealing how, in the early years of the Second World War, the fort became a testbed for prototype radar and other experimental systems while the Battle of Britain raged overhead.
The trust has discovered how one radar pioneer who worked at the fort later helped revolutionise the development of computing.
Volunteers remain the driving force behind the transformation, with the team, including architects, engineers, historians and local enthusiasts, working “insanely hard” to turn the vandalised relic into a place where people once again gather, learn and perform.
A workshop for new tour guides is planned once the weather improves, with the first public tours of the year expected to begin in May, including one for the IW Walking Festival.
The trust is still appealing for extra hands in almost every area, from guides and fort hosts to bar staff and event supporters, as activity on site ramps up.
Islanders with family stories, photographs or memorabilia relating to Bembridge Fort or its satellite sites are also invited to come forward to help flesh out the emerging picture of East Wight’s military and technological past.
When the County Press first reported on the Bembridge Fort Trust’s plans last year, historian and project manager Tim Wander described the fort as a “blank canvas” for the community.
A year on, that canvas is filling rapidly – not just with scaffolding and surveyors’ reports, but with jazz, murder mysteries, research workshops and a growing programme of performances beneath the brick vaults.
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