Heurt Fort: A Napoleonic Coastal Fort in France
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.5
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- France
- Primary era
- Modern
- Eras represented
- Modern
- Civilizations
- French, German
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Fort
On this page6 sections
History
Heurt Fort is a ruined Napoleonic coastal fort in France, facing Le Portel and built under Napoleon Bonaparte in 1803 to protect the fleet’s southern anchorage at the Camp de Boulogne, a military encampment and naval staging area near Boulogne-sur-Mer. It occupies the remains of the ancient maritime promontory called Icius by Ptolemy, the second-century geographer and astronomer who recorded ancient place-names and geographical features.
Construction during the Napoleonic period
Napoleon ordered the fort after Britain broke the Treaty of Amiens in May 1803. That agreement had temporarily ended hostilities between France and Britain. Work began on 24 May 1803 under Captain of Engineers Gouville. The plans were signed by Guillaume Dode de la Brunerie, Director of Fortifications, who later became a marshal under Louis Philippe I.
Construction continued despite repeated storm damage and ongoing British attacks. The fort became operational on 16 July 1804. An identical counterpart, Fort de la Crèche, was built at Wimereux. Storms and coastal erosion severely damaged that structure, which was almost irreparable by 1870. Only fragments of its foundations remain visible. A separate fort with the same name, built in the 1870s, is not the counterpart constructed alongside Heurt Fort.
War, preservation, and protection
During the Second World War, German forces installed an anti-aircraft battery by pouring a concrete slab over part of the fort. The intervention consolidated the ruins, although a major storm in November 1998 caused part of the structure to collapse. Since 1977, the preservation association ASFHPP has supported the fort. A consolidation project was studied by Philippe Prost, an architect specializing in monuments at sea.
Heurt Fort has been a protected classified site since 18 April 1931. This status safeguards its notable landscape and historic character, and alterations require prior authorization. The rocky formation was once a larger island extending toward Equihen. An old British map called it Heustrière, meaning “Oyster Island.” The name is said to have shortened first to Heustre and then to Heurt.
Remains
Island setting and masonry
The fort stands on a rocky island or maritime promontory facing Le Portel. Its surviving outer walls were built from hewn stone blocks quarried at Ainghem and Wimille. The blocks measured approximately 1.90 by 1.30 by 0.40 metres. Surviving buttresses and inner cores consist of rubble masonry bonded with cement or lime mortar. Together, these elements form the ruined and partly collapsed envelope of the fort.
Terrace, entrance, and artillery
Access to the interior was through a doorway reached by a ladder. A circular staircase inside the tower led to the upper platform. The terrace stood 13.50 metres, or 41 feet, above the rocks and covered about 175 square metres. It formed a semicircle with a stated curved extent of 150 metres.
A parapet surrounded the upper terrace. Behind it stood twelve 36-pounder guns, heavy muzzle-loading cannons classified by the weight of their shot, together with four long-range six-inch howitzers, short-barrelled artillery pieces designed for high-angle fire. Three twelve-inch mortars, intended mainly for steeply arcing projectiles, occupied the centre of the platform. The concrete slab added during the Second World War remains part of the surviving physical structure.
