Newhaven Fort Collections

The Collections

Newhaven Fort has thousands of individual objects on display and in store ranging from weapons, uniforms and trench art through to documents, photographs and maps.

A general overview is detailed below and we are happy to answer more specific enquiries regarding the collections and their holdings.

Arms, Armour and Ordnance

There are over 40 guns in the collection – mainly British, American and German along with an extensive collection of ordnance and edged weapons.  The collection traces the development of these weapons through the ages and the way they have influenced military strategy, mainly relating to the 19th and 20th centuries. The largest weapons in the collection are the 7 ton 6-inch coastal and the 12 pounder guns on the ramparts.

The Great War of 1914 – 1918

This Great War is a vast subject area and this collection covers:

• War on land, sea and air and the Home Front
• New weapons and technologies
• Work of the poets
• Life in the trenches and trench art
• Propaganda
• Conscientious objectors and attitudes to war
• The end of the war – the Versailles treaty and post war problems
• War Graves commission and British Legion

Second World War

Objects related to the Second World War form the largest collection at the Fort.  Notable subject areas include:-

• The Home Front (including - the Land Army, rationing and shortages, the role of women, evacuation, children at war, ARP and rescue services, the Home Guard, air raids and War workers)
• D-Day
• The Dieppe Raid and the role of Canadian soldiers in Sussex
• Newhaven at war
• Royal Observer Corps
• Propaganda

Post War

The post war collection includes:

• The immediate post war years – how it affected people
• The nuclear threat and the Cold War – the Royal Observer Corps
• Post war conflicts and the change of public attitude to war

Newhaven Fort

Newhaven Fort stands on Castle Hill and there have been defences here almost continuously since the Bronze age.

The collections cover this continuous history but concentrate on the present Fort, since its construction in the 1860s, through two world wars through to dereliction and eventual restoration.  The collection also includes other defences in the area of which the Fort was a part.