View of machine shop from North East

Description View of machine shop from North East

Date 26/5/1996

Collection Records of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS), Edinbu

Catalogue Number SC 643649

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of C 66964

Scope and Content Workshops, World War II airfield, Hatston, Kirkwall, Mainland, Orkney Islands In World War II there were four main military airfields in Orkney, two of which were originally operated by the Royal Navy (Twatt and Hatston) and two by the Royal Air Force (Skeabrae and Grimsetter), Grimsetter, now Kirkwall Airport, being transferred to the Royal Navy from 1943 to 1945. Hatston, operational at the outbreak of war in September 1939 and shortly afterwards commissioned as HMS Sparrowhawk, had the distinction of being the first purpose-built Royal Naval Air Station in Britain and the first aerodrome in Scotland to have runways with hard tarmacadam surfaces. Standing close to the aircraft hangars on the former naval airfield of Hatston, now a modern industrial estate, this group of buildings probably served as machine or engineering workshops, later converted into warehouse accommodation with wide doors. Above a rubble-built masonry base, the upper halves of the four adjacent units are clad in corrugated metal sheets and the roof is of a distinctive saw tooth profile, originally creating a top-lit interior from glazed vertical roof panels. At the heart of the Orkney archipelago, Scapa Flow was the main fleet anchorage for the Royal Navy during both World Wars. Its vital importance led to the creation of one of the most concentrated defence networks in Britain. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/collection/643649

File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap