This building is on the site of the fort built by order of King Charles I I in 1678 as part of the Gosport Lines. In 1782 there was a beer house within the abandoned fort, run by Thomas Whitcomb. Later he moved to The Castle Tavern which he built adjacent to the south outer western wall. From 1824 to 2005 the site of the fort was occupied by world famous yacht builder Camper & Nicholsons. A gun platform from which the Parliamentarians bombarded the Royalists at Portsmouth into surrender in 1642 was nearby.