A man was taken to hospital after falling 20ft at a popular visitor attraction.

The man, aged 24, was rescued from the trench at Fort Amherst by two fire crews from the Medway station.

They had to climb down ladders to the bottom of the defensive ditch where the man was waiting.

The operation took about an hour and a half.

A police spokesman said it appeared he had climbed over a wall in the early hours of Sunday morning before ending up at the bottom of the ditch.

“We aren’t sure whether he fell or he slipped down the ditch,” he said.

The man was conscious through the rescue.

South East Coast Ambulance Service treated him at the scene, before taking him to the Medway Maritime Hospital.

The man was suffering from pins and needles in his hands and arms, and complaining of rib and stomach pains.

A police spokesman said: “It is all a bit bizarre.”

The fort is part of the Great Lines Country Park which the council hopoes will soon be named a World Heritage Site.

The defensive ditches - some more than 50 feet deep - were built over 200 years ago. They were designed to trap Napoleon’s army if it ever invaded England and attacked the dockyard.

Some that were to be filled in are to be excavated in the near future.