Thursday Island (Torres Strait Islands) - Green Hill Fort

Torres Strait Islands
Queensland
Thursday Island Green Hill Fort, built in 1891-1893

Green Hill Fort on Thursday Island was built between 1891-1893 as part of Australia's defence against a possible Russian invasion. It was eventually decommissioned some time in 1927 and the buildings were demolished and the guns were spiked. Green Hill is a small grassy hill about 58 metres above sea level at the western end of Thursday Island.
There are five rooms with 600mm thick concrete walls used for ammunition storage. The initial buildings on site were the general storeroom, shell store, cordite room, lamp room and artillery store. A timber and corrugated iron guardhouse (25' x 15') was also built over a 20,000 gallon underground well. A cooling plant machine room and a powder room were added in 1912. "Air conditioning ducts were installed from the cooling plant machine room to the cordite store.
The guns that were part of the pre federation fort were as follows:
4 rifle muzzle-loading (RML) 7" guns
4 sixteen-pounders (King 1983:98)
2 Mark VI 6" breech loading guns
2 Mark IV 6" breech loading gun

Green Hill Fort was reactivated during WWII and was used as a Signals and Wireless Station. The main change to the fort was the filling of the doorway to the Artillery Store by the Royal Australian Engineers with reinforced concrete in 1942. There is evidence of some small Seaward defence emplacements on the grassy slopes for machine gun emplacements.
From 1954 to 1993 the land at Green Hill Fort was used for a weather station by the Bureau of Meteorology.