Qualla: Fort Charlotte, Shetland

Fort Charlotte, Shetland: Introduction

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Lrs1572, CC BY-SA 2.0 de. In 1667, a Dutch fleet appeared in the waters off Lerwick and decided not to attack Fort Charlotte. The fort's walls were unfinished, it had few guns, and the garrison was small -- but the Dutch did not know any of this. The bluff held. Six years later, during the Third Anglo-Dutch War, the Dutch came back. This time the fort was unmanned, and they burned it. The history of Fort Charlotte is a story of timing: built, abandoned, burned, rebuilt, and repurposed so many times that its five-sided walls have seen more careers than most buildings manage in a century.

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Image: Lrs1572 | CC BY-SA 2.0 de

Fort Charlotte, Shetland: Three Wars, Three Forts

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Clemensfranz, CC BY-SA 3.0. The first fort on this site was built between 1652 and 1653 during the First Anglo-Dutch War. Almost nothing is known about it, and no trace has been found. The second structure was built on the same site in 1665 by Robert Mylne, on the orders of Charles II, at a cost of 28,000 p...

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Image: Clemensfranz | CC BY-SA 3.0

Fort Charlotte, Shetland: Charlotte's Fort

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mike Pennington, CC BY-SA 2.0. The fort was rebuilt in its current form in 1781 and named after Queen Charlotte, consort of George III. The design is roughly five-sided, with full bastions on each of three landward corners and half-bastions on the two seaward corners -- a star-shaped plan typical of 18th-centu...

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Image: Mike Pennington | CC BY-SA 2.0

Fort Charlotte, Shetland: Hidden Behind the Town

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Otter, CC BY-SA 3.0. One of the most unusual things about Fort Charlotte is that you can walk past it without realising it is there. Land reclamation and the construction of buildings along Lerwick's waterfront mean that the fort no longer dominates the shoreline as its builders intended. The star-sh...

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Image: Otter | CC BY-SA 3.0