Fort Pitt, Kent

Fort Pitt was a fort built between 1805 and 1819 on the high ground of the boundary between Chatham and Rochester, Kent. It did not last long, becoming a hospital for invalid soldiers in 1828, with an asylum added in 1849. Florence Nightingale started the first Army Medical School there in 1860, but by the 1920s the hospital was closed and the site converted into a girls school, now known as Fort Pitt Grammar School.

Most of the outer defences of the fort survive including parts of the outer works which extend into the adjacent recreation grounds to the east and west. Some of the internal buildings date to the period of use as a hospital and possibly earlier, maybe even preceding the defensive works. From the hill it is possible to see Fort Clarence tower to the west, and the remains of Fort Amherst to the north east. A ditch, wall and (reputedly) tunnels linked the three into a single fortified Napoleonic defensive line, defending the naval docks against a (land-based) attack from the south.

Fort Pitt is also the location of the fictional duel between Mr. Tracy Tupman and Dr. Slammer in the Charles Dickens novel "The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club".

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