For sale: remote maritime citadel suitable for wealthy investor with fantasies of living like a Bond villain. Not suitable for anyone who likes to drop in on neighbours unannounced because there aren’t any — at least none accessible by land.
The three 19th-century forts in the Solent have been, variously, a much-derided part of Britain’s defences, army barracks, hotels and venues for events. Now their owner is selling them as private homes.
Spitbank is the closest to shore, half a mile off the coast
Mike Clare, the founder and former owner of the bed company Dreams, put the forts on the market two years ago to be run as hotels. This year, however, he was granted permission from Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight councils, the two local authorities in which the properties sit, to convert them
