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Sandown Fort

1864 establishments in EnglandForts on the Isle of WightGovernment buildings completed in 1864Infrastructure completed in 1864Palmerston Forts
Wildheart Animal Sanctuary Exterior
Wildheart Animal Sanctuary Exterior

Sandown Fort (map reference SZ597839) is a fort built in Sandown on the Isle of Wight in the middle of Sandown Bay. It is one of the many Palmerston Forts built on the island to protect it in response to a perceived French invasion. It was a replacement of the earlier Sandown Diamond Fort as, in 1859, the Royal Commission felt it did not offer suitable protection. Construction of the fort began in April 1861 and was completed by September 1864 at a cost of £73,876. In later documents it is often referred to as Granite Fort. The fort originally had 18 9-inch R.M.L guns facing the sea behind iron shields, these guns were later upgraded and an extra 5 inches of armor was added.The fort was sold in 1930 but during World War II the fort played a significant role in the D-Day landings as it housed sixteen pumps for the PLUTO (Pipe Line Under The Ocean) operation to keep the Allied forces supplied with fuel. Each of the 16 pumps supplied 36,000 imperial gallons (1,000 barrels; 160,000 litres) of fuel per day at a pressure of 1,500 lb per square inch. In the 1950s the site was used to house the Isle of Wight Zoo, which was renamed as the Wildheart Animal Sanctuary in 2021.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Sandown Fort (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Sandown Fort
Yaverland Road,

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N 50.6605 ° E -1.1391 °
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The Wildheart Animal Sanctuary

Yaverland Road
PO36 8QB
England, United Kingdom
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Yaverland
Yaverland

Yaverland is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Sandown, on the Isle of Wight, England. It is just north of Sandown on Sandown Bay. It has about 200 houses. About 1⁄3 of a mile away from the village is the Yaverland Manor and Church. Holotype fossils have been discovered here of Yaverlandia and a pterosaur, Caulkicephalus. The White Air extreme sports festival was held annually at Yaverland pay and display car park between 1997 and 2008, but moved to Brighton for 2009.The older part of the village is spread along the road to Bembridge by the Norman Church. The newer part is along the seafront, consisting entirely of a bungalow estate. The name appears to come from a local rendition of "over land" - being the land over the once-tidal causeway. An alternative derivation is from "Yar Island". In the fields below Yaverland the archaeological television programme Time Team discovered a Roman smithy. In 1545 a battle took place in Yaverland between French forces and local levies. The French were crossing Culver Down from their landing at Whitecliff Bay in order to attack Sandown Castle and link up with a force from Bonchurch. The French fought their way into Sandown but were defeated at Sandown Castle, then under construction in the sea. The Isle of Wight Zoo is in Yaverland. The zoo is noted for its collection of rescued tigers and increasingly realistic and spacious enclosures for them. The zoo inhabits much of the converted buildings of the Granite Fort built by Lord Palmerston as a defense against the French in 1860. The grounds were used by the military during World War II as part of the Pluto pipeline to send oil under the English Channel to France to fuel the Allied war efforts. By the sea is the Yaverland Sailing and Boat Club and along the seashore are fossil-bearing beds, which may be explored by guided walks from Dinosaur Isle. A holiday camp is located further north in the village, and was once the site of Yaverland Battery. In November 2008, the Isle of Wight Council opened a new public toilet block which runs completely from renewable energy generated on-site. It is thought to be one of the "greenest" facilities in the UK.Southern Vectis bus route 8 links the village with the towns of Newport, Ryde, Bembridge and Sandown, including intermediate towns. Bus route 24 also links Yaverland around Culver Way to Sandown. The latter was formerly operated by Wightbus.