Fort Dorset Battery
This was the first emplacement to be built at Point Dorset. The 6-inch battery and its fire control post occupied a high point overlooking both the channel and the approaches to the harbour entrance. The emplacements were of a standard Imperial design, open concrete emplacements over a large magazine complex, with shell and cartridge hoists (see picture below). The design is almost identical to the 6-inch battery built at the same time at North Head in Auckland. The guns themselves were mounted and ready for action by January 1911. During the First World War the battery was the only one to mount modern guns in Wellington, though the older forts were used in a supporting role. In 1937 a new, semi-sunken, BOP was built for the battery, due to the inadequacies of the original BOP. The new one was used as the night BOP, the older one becoming the Day BOP. During WW2 the emplacements received overhead covers, similar to those that remain at Fort Opau. At the end of the war the 6-inch guns were removed and replaced with 3.7-inch guns which served through till 1957 when all coastal defences in NZ were scrapped.
