A Brief Fort History
Our inland canal and road system was developed after about 1760 but mostly in the 1800s. Before that the seas round the coast and the larger inland rivers were used for the carriage of goods and people. They were vulnerable to storms, floods, crime and piracy.
Belan stands at a strategic point on the Menai Straits on a part of what were the extensive Glynliffon estates of the Wynne family. The growing importance of the port of Liverpool from the later 18th century meant that ships entering or leaving needed protection from piracy and possible enemy attack. Goods and material for the estate and surrounding habitations could be discharged from vessels beached nearby and later at the dock.
France entered the war on the side of the American colonists in 1778 followed by Spain and the Netherlands. A French expeditionary force landed near Fishguard in 1797 but was repulsed.
At Belan, a battery for fourteen guns surrounded by walls and a moat was built in 1776 to defend the entrance to the Straits and house militia to protect the surrounding area. Two barrack blocks were built, one on the west side for officers and for other ranks on the east side. There were stables, ammunition stores and a bakery. It was originally known as 'Abermenai barracks' before being changed in 1824 to 'Fort St David' and later to 'Belan Fort'.
The battery was unprotected but would have had good fire power if ever attacked. By the time the fort was completed and after the victory at Trafalgar in 1805 there was not the remotest chance of a French invasion but the fort became a useful garrison for troops.
When the garrison were disbanded in 1808 ther Fort became a location for leisure activities including sailing, which was a pursuit of The Wynn family during summer holidays, - together with the occasional firing of cannons.
During the second world war it was part of a military area protected by six motor boats based at the Fort's docks.
The 23rd Armoured Brigade occupied a military camp in the surrounding area.
Two air-sea rescue launches were based at the docks.
An airfield for the training of bomber crews was built nearby. It closed in 1945 and for a while was used for the storage of nerve gas bombs which were later carried down the specially built concrete landing strip for tank landing craft to transport them to boats which disposed of them in deep water out at sea some distance away from the fort. The airfield became Caernarvon Airport. Occasionally the cannons were fired for fun, as during the celebrations for the Prince Charles' investiture as Prince of Wales at Caernarvon Castle in 1969 when flying wadding almost hit Anthony Armstrong Jones the then husband of Princess Margaret in a boat arriving at the docks.
The Fort was opened as a commercial leisure centre in 1979 but later closed and was sold to Shotley Marina. It had become semi derelict by the time it became the property of the present owners the Blundell family who wished to set up a marine research centre by the dock to address the problem of the depletion of the fishing stocks and in particular of Bass.
Gradually, restoration work has been carried out and the cottages are now let out for holidays.
A fuller, detailed and fascinating account of the history of Fort Belan and the artefacts preserved from it can be found in “A Maritime Fortress” by Michael Stammers (University of Wales Press, Cardiff ISBN 0-7083-1671-9). Copies of this are sold by the Friends of Belan in aid of the restoration fund. (See 'contacts')