Whilst the fort is shut over the winter period a lot of restoration takes place where it would be difficult to carry this out with the public on site. At the moment we are concentrating on restoring the two stairwells within the fort. This entails 5 coats of lime wash, painting the bottom of the walls in black, infilling brickwork holes that have been punched through in the past where various people over time have gone looking for tunnels and installing the very small windows within the stairwells. Interestingly, following the manufacturers quidelines, as the lime wash may occasionally get rain on it, 1% raw linseed oil was added to the final coat for extra protection. It seems to be doing the trick.
