Recently, I made the long trek down to Westerly, Rhode Island an order to find this abandoned military installation. According to Wikipedia, it was built during the Spanish-American war and decommissioned somewhere around 1912 when it was determined to be vulnerable to attack from the other side of the bay. By 1916 it was completely abandoned. It’s now part of a nature preserve that includes a beautiful public beach. The area around it is known as watch Hill, there is also a lighthouse visible from the beach.
I knew the hike out to this location was going to be long from reviews I read online. It actually ended up being much more difficult than I was led to believe. Reaching the end of the point after meandering down the beach taking lots of photos along the way, I could see on my map that it was right next to me but could not find the overgrown path. Eventually, after some climbing and poking around, I found an overgrown path that had been washed out in a minor landslide. Jackpot?
After climbing up and finding the top landing, I found that the entire area was fenced off. Luckily for me it was a low fence and I was able to get my camera up and around to snap plenty of pictures. If the fort itself didn’t look so decayed and decrepit, I may have changed climbing down into it. The view from above was stunning however. Not only did I get pictures of the graffiti and the crumbling doorways and empty gun turrets, I got some beautiful shots of the landscape and the sea around it. My favorite shots are the one that includes pictures of the landscape along with pictures of the decaying fort – hence the title chaos and beauty.
I will add more pictures to the media section.
SMC ’25
Entropic Vision Photography 
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