Six-tonne cannon installed at Fort Clonque

The advent of steam ships in the 1840s made the Channel Islands strategically important as a refuelling base for both the British and French.

Work to construct the harbour defence began in 1847.

Clonque was designed to house 10 x 64-pounder guns in four open batteries, manned by two officers and 50 men but the rapid increase in range of steam ships made it redundant almost as soon as it was completed. The Germans took it over during the Occupation.

The structure is operated by the Landmark Trust – a British building conservation charity, founded in 1965 by Sir John and Lady Smith, that rescues buildings of historic interest or architectural merit and makes them available for holiday rental.

Fort Clonque, which can sleep up to 13 people, is cut off from Alderney at high tide and its accommodation is spread across several buildings.

Guernsey company Siteweld was recently asked to install a cannon which had been sourced off-island. The item had to be grit blasted and painted first.

Siteweld managing director Tim Martel said his company was used to heavy lifting jobs but this was their first cannon.

The cannon weighed six tonnes and the work, including building a gantry to carry it, took about a week to complete.

‘We had to use a crane and get it over a drawbridge, across the causeway and under an arch,’ said Mr Martel.

The cannon now sits on a replica wooden carriage, weighing two tonnes, that was built in Cornwall.

Alderney Society president and fortification historian, Dr Trevor Davenport, said that Landmark Trust could be proud of the work it had done on Fort

Clonque which had been done sympathetically to its history.

‘It’s fantastic,’ he said.

‘When you go in the officers’ quarters it’s just as if the Victorians only walked out of there yesterday.'