Spitbank Fort’s mid-Solent location.
WIGHT LIVINGTHEY were known as Palmerston’s Follies — and they have continued to live up to that name.
They never shot a cannon in anger at the French, against whom they were built as a defensive line, and business ideas for the Solent forts’ use have largely been equally damp squibs.
Now a new owner has stepped into the financial firing line, pouring buckets of cash into turning one of the Solent icons into a luxury retreat, looking to tap a similar corporate entertainment market to those who poured millions into No Man’s Land Fort off Seaview.
At least £3 million is being invested in Spitbank Fort, which will be a familiar sight to cross-Solent travellers a mile outside Portsmouth Harbour and which was a low-key dance party venue for several years.
Now it promises to be THE secluded party place, a venue that could hardly be further from the prying lenses of the paparazzi. Its guests will no doubt be shielded from public gaze in the same way as those who partied at No Man’s Land, once rumoured as a birthday venue for Madonna, just over a pebble’s throw from her then husband Guy Ritchie’s family in Seaview.
The multi-millionaire businessman Mike Clare, founder of the Dreams bed superstore empire, famously bought Spitbank "sight unseen" for a reputed £1 million.
It sits alongside other top-end party and conference venues in the quirky property portfolio of Clare’s Amazing Retreats empire, which include a 15th century castle, two miles from Wick in the north of Scotland, Grade I listed Morley Old Hall in the flats of Norfolk and a smattering of manor houses all over.
Spitbank sits happily in that mix. As venues they may all be very different, but what they all have in common is the Wow! factor.
Recouping substantial investment comes at a price, passed on to the public.
Fancy a night with 15 of your friends? Exclusive hire is available at an introductory offer price of just £8,000. But that does include dinner, bed and breakfast.
From a mogul who made his money out of beds, one would expect luxury bedrooms and there are eight of those, all en-suite; three private dining rooms and bars, including a rooftop champagne bar; games rooms, a wine cellar, library, rooftop hot pool, sauna and sun decks and a fire-pit for the coolest of barbecues.
Creating all that from the substantial granite shell of a building has proved a logistical challenge for the army of contractors — men and materials ferried out there each day, to work in often challenging conditions.
Predictably, work has overrun and the launch, which had been expected in late summer, has been put back to March.
"It is not your everyday job. Physically, getting everything there has proved very challenging," said fort general manager Mark Watts, who has been in charge of pulling together many of the threads, along with site manager Lee Tyson.
Together they have grappled with the logistics and consequent high cost of doing absolutely everything.
Every bag of material has to be craned onto the fort and during the clearance phase 600 sacks of rubble were taken off.
Amazing Retreats has had to work closely with English Heritage to bring the fort to life in the right way.
But Mark said sympathetic restoration was what changing the use of Spitbank was all about.
"We obviously want people to stay in Spitbank and enjoy it, but putting the fort and the other buildings back together again are labours of love," he said.
In the bar, ships’ portholes framed in oak form tables and for those who take water with it, there is plenty on tap.
Spitbank and its fellow forts have artesian wells sunk into the chalk below the Solent silt.
More than 23,000 gallons a day can be taken from that source and guests who pitch up to the fort will be able to taste the delights of undersea water, which will be bottled for their delight.
The fort is described as being ideal for wedding receptions, anniversaries, landmark birthday celebrations to remember, business away-days or corporate events.
There may only be eight sumptuous bedrooms but Spitbank is being equipped to deal with 48 people for banqueting and 60 for conferences and functions.
It’s a far cry from Spitbank’s fascinating and quirky history.
The side facing the Island was originally armed with nine 12.5ins muzzle loading guns, replaced in 1884 with more modern 12ins breech-loaders, which remained in service until after the First World War.
The fort was declared surplus to requirements in 1962 but was only sold by the Ministry of Defence in 1982.
Since then it has been privately owned before being bought by Amazing Retreats in 2009 — almost 150 years to the day that the Royal Commission approved its construction and a mere nine years after its most high-profile role Then, Jeremy Beadle was locked in dungeons in its bowels for six weeks’ TV survival in Banged Up With Beadle.
Spitbank later featured in TV’s Most Haunted — but one thing’s for sure, the ghost of the tv personality would hardly know large parts of the place now, dripping with luxury instead of condensation.
Reporter: richardw@iwcpmail.co.uk