Photographs of Fort Wellington - Page Three |
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Right: Commissariat stores inside the blockhouse. The
blockhouse was intended to be self-sufficient in the event a
besieging force captured the Fort's earthworks. Inside,
emergency food (and, apparently, party) supplies were kept
to feed the garrison. This was not the regular food supply
for the garrison, which would have been provided by
civilian contractors and stored in commissary buildings
located outside the Fort.
Right: Barracks stores inside the blockhouse. Soldiers
need blankets, shoe polish, shoes, backpacks, lanterns,
candles and other incidents of military life. These were
stored here.
Right: Inside the powder magazine. The standard firearm
and artillery propellant in the 1840s was blackpowder. It
was stored in wooden barrels and a ready supply was
maintained in the powder magazine. The magazine was
protected by a heavy, copper door and an arched masonry
roof. Parks Canada theorizes that the arched roof was
resistant to shelling and, if the magazine's contents
exploded, the blast would be channeled outwards through
the walls rather than upwards into the barracks areas on the
upper stories of the blockhouse. I have my doubts. I have
it on some authority that the "powder" barrels are actually
herring barrels manufactured at Louisbourg, Nova Scotia.
Right: Inside the barracks. Located on the second floor,
this barracks room provided accommodation for married
soldiers and their families. Extant records indicate that
some form of curtains was permitted, but privacy was not a
high priority. Inmates in Her Majesty's prisons were
entitled by law to more space than soldiers living in Her
Majesty's garrisons.
Although the author does not believe in ghosts, as a youth
he once experienced a strange manifestation in this corner
of the barracks room which quickly activated his flight
instinct. His experience was shared with the Fort's cat,
which at least had the dignity to hiss at the apparition before
fleeing.
Right: Wash stand in the married barracks. In the late
1970s, Parks Canada took note of British research that
regulation barrack stores did not seem to differentiate
between buckets used for washing and buckets used for
toilets. Within a few years, the institutional memory of this
anecdote had transmogrified into the story that soldiers in
the British Army suffered from blindness as a result of eye
infections caused by not cleaning out their toilet buckets
before washing their faces in the morning. Beware of
institutional memory.
blockhouse was intended to be self-sufficient in the event a
besieging force captured the Fort's earthworks. Inside,
emergency food (and, apparently, party) supplies were kept
to feed the garrison. This was not the regular food supply
for the garrison, which would have been provided by
civilian contractors and stored in commissary buildings
located outside the Fort.
Right: Barracks stores inside the blockhouse. Soldiers
need blankets, shoe polish, shoes, backpacks, lanterns,
candles and other incidents of military life. These were
stored here.
Right: Inside the powder magazine. The standard firearm
and artillery propellant in the 1840s was blackpowder. It
was stored in wooden barrels and a ready supply was
maintained in the powder magazine. The magazine was
protected by a heavy, copper door and an arched masonry
roof. Parks Canada theorizes that the arched roof was
resistant to shelling and, if the magazine's contents
exploded, the blast would be channeled outwards through
the walls rather than upwards into the barracks areas on the
upper stories of the blockhouse. I have my doubts. I have
it on some authority that the "powder" barrels are actually
herring barrels manufactured at Louisbourg, Nova Scotia.
Right: Inside the barracks. Located on the second floor,
this barracks room provided accommodation for married
soldiers and their families. Extant records indicate that
some form of curtains was permitted, but privacy was not a
high priority. Inmates in Her Majesty's prisons were
entitled by law to more space than soldiers living in Her
Majesty's garrisons.
Although the author does not believe in ghosts, as a youth
he once experienced a strange manifestation in this corner
of the barracks room which quickly activated his flight
instinct. His experience was shared with the Fort's cat,
which at least had the dignity to hiss at the apparition before
fleeing.
Right: Wash stand in the married barracks. In the late
1970s, Parks Canada took note of British research that
regulation barrack stores did not seem to differentiate
between buckets used for washing and buckets used for
toilets. Within a few years, the institutional memory of this
anecdote had transmogrified into the story that soldiers in
the British Army suffered from blindness as a result of eye
infections caused by not cleaning out their toilet buckets
before washing their faces in the morning. Beware of
institutional memory.