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The five
and half mile long pipeline was installed in the early 1940s and linked the Oil
Fuel Reservoir on Portsdown with the Admiralty Oil Fuel Depot at Forton in Gosport reportedly using 1 x 10 inch and 2 x 16 inch pipes.
There were inspection pits situated at regular intervals along its length
containing isolation and diversion valves. At the Invergordon Fuel Depot
electrical fuel heaters (to make the fuel oil less viscous in winter) were
installed every 200 yards but there is no evidence of their use at Portsdown. After WWII, as the area around the pipeline was built on, a 15 foot wide strip
of ground above it was fenced off using 4 foot concrete posts and
chainlink fencing.
In 2005 when these webpages were
written, around 10 years had passed since the pipeline had been decommissioned
and most of the evidence of its existence had disappeared with the
exception of a 1970s built inspection pit, one sign and odds and ends of
fencing. The residents of the area had been offered the chance to buy the
pipeline land if it ran next to their property and most of them have done so.
This land is now classified as 'contaminated' and cannot be built on.
The
following pages chart the route of the pipeline from the Fuel Bunkers to the
point where it crosses Portsmouth Harbour to Gosport.
On the
Gosport side the pipeline makes landfall near Foxbury Point in Fleetlands. From
here it goes south through Bedenham, RNAD Frater, Priddy's Hard, and under
Forton Lake to the Oil Fuel Depot. A booster pump house was located just behind the North Star
Pub, and was kept in running order until it was demolished in the
1990s.
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