Pair sign 10-year deal to run historic fort museum

Two men who reopened a heritage fort as a museum last year have now signed a 10-year lease to run the attraction in the long term.

Nick Taylor and Nick Moore originally had a short-term agreement to manage Fort Paull Battery, near Hull, last summer.

The pair announced the news on social media and said the response from the public had been "incredible".

The fort opened as a museum in back in 2000, but closed to the public in 2020.

Mr Taylor and Mr Moore said: "With our amazing team behind us and the support from the general public, we believe that we are the right group of people for the job, we hope that you agree."

Fort Paull, on the north bank of the Humber Estuary, reopened with a series of events.

The exhibits from the previous museum were auctioned off, so the pair are having to build up the new collection from scratch.

The fortifications at the heritage site were constructed in 1542, with additions made during the English Civil War. The gun battery was an important defensive emplacement during the Napoleonic Wars.

It was later used as a training base, and during World War Two was converted into an ammunition magazine for the Arctic convoys.

The Ministry of Defence closed the site in 1960, and four years later a group of volunteers took it on and began a restoration project. From 2000, the museum included waxwork figures of people who had been based at the fort, an armoury and military vehicles.

Its showpiece exhibit was the last remaining complete Blackburn Beverley transport aircraft.

The landowner, Brian Rushworth, agreed to the lease after his application to turn the site into a caravan park was refused by East Riding Council.

Mr Taylor, a former Royal Marine, was previously the fort's caretaker and Mr Moore ran a campaign to keep the attraction open.

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