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Click to view map Coordinates: | No shot was fired in anger from the stone bastions of Fort Frederick, the oldest surviving British fortification in the Eastern Cape. It overlooked Algoa Bay at the mouth of the Baakens River, which at one time was wide, opening out into a lagoon. In 1799 General Dundas ordered a blockhouse to be erected near the beach in order to command both the landing place and the ford across the Baakens River. At the same time, on the hill above, he built a fort consisting of another wooden blockhouse, surrounded by a massive square redoubt of stonework, with walls 24m long and 2,7m high. Both wooden forts were constructed in Cape Town and then taken round to Algoa Bay by sea - early examples of prefabricated military buildings ready-made for erection on site. Just without the walls is the grave of Capt Francis Evatt, who commanded the Fort from 1817-1850. The fort was named after Frederick, Duke of York, Cornmander-in-Chief of the British Army - 'The grand old Duke of York, he had ten thousand men, he marched them up to the top of the hill, and he marched them down again . . .' Wording on the Historical Monuments Commission plaque: FORT FREDERICK 1799-1868 FORT FREDERICK 1799-1868 All truncated references not fully cited below are those of Joanna Walker's original text and cited in full in the 'Bibliography' entry of the Lexicon. Books that reference Fort Frederick
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