Monument MPM2043 - Railway tracks, Fort Cumberland

A short length of railway track was observed in a trench excavated for a telecom cable during a watching brief at Fort Cumberland in 2000. The track had a 0.60m gauge and consisted of iron rails set onto concrete rubble footings with 0.075m wide sleepers set onto a concrete bedding. The northern extent of the track could not be ascertained.

The track was the easternmost of a pair of railway tracks set into a 13.5m x 8.4m concrete slab that ran perpendicular to the curtain wall and out towards the parade ground. No evidence of the western track was observed in the trench during the watching brief. The watching brief report notes that the tracks set into the slab were positioned 2.7m apart. The concrete slab had formed the footing to what was thought to have been an early-20th century building (demolished prior to 2000), possibly a store, and the tracks had probably been used to transport munitions or supplies. When the railway had fallen into disuse the gap along the inside of the tracks had been filled in with concrete to level the floor.

The section of track exposed in the trench during the watching brief was preserved in situ by re-routing cable ducting through gravel beneath.

[1]


An anomaly recorded during geophysical surveys carried out between 2017 and 2023 may have associated with the railway tracks observed during the excavation that took place in 2000. [2]

<1> Fellows, David, 2001, Report on the Telecom Cable Trench Watching Brief at Fort Cumberland (Bibliographic reference). SPM614.

<2> Clements, Megan, Linford, Neil & Payne, Andrew, 2023, Fort Cumberland, Eastney, City of Portsmouth: Report on Geophysical Surveys, May 2017 to May 2023 (Bibliographic reference). SPM649.