Barton's Point Coastal Park

About

Barton's Point Coastal Park is on the Isle of Sheppey, in Kent, England. It lies between Minster and Sheerness. Within the park is a former military ditch/canal from Marine Parade (beside the coast) heading south-westerly towards West Minster (a suburb of Sheerness).

History: After the Dutch Navy, attacked the blockhouse, built to protect Sheerness Royal Navy dockyard from attack in the Raid on the Medway. In 1667, a plan was drawn up to defend the landward side of the dockyard. A flooded ditch between two demi-bastions (a half-bastion, which has one face and one flank). They were then named 'Queenborough' and 'Minster'. They were started in 1667 and completed in 1685. In 1782, the ditch was further extended, now heading from the Medway (on the west) to the Thames (on the east). After the Royal Commission on the Defence of the United Kingdom in 1860, which decided that the Dockyard needed more defensive works on its landward side. Due to economic pressures the simplest means was to build an earthwork defensive line across the Sheerness peninsula, 1 km south-east of the earlier bastion-trace defences of the Sheerness Lines. These were called the 'Queenborough lines'. Lands were...