Easter Craigie, Decoy Control Bunker, Generator Plant

NJ91NW 44 9225 1976

This air-raid shelter is situated 200m N of Easter Craigie farmsteading (NJ91NW 45.00) and has been sunk into a gentle S-facing slope. The shelter was built and used by the military during the Second World War when Harestone Moss, immediately to the E, was used as a decoy airfield for Dyce aerodrome (NJ81SE 44.00). The E end of the structure housed a generator which provided the electricity to power the lights of the dummy airstrip.

The shelter comprises three compartments on an E to W axis, the central one entered from the S by a flight of eleven concrete steps. The central compartment, which is constructed of shuttered concrete, with vertical walls and a flat roof, is little more than an ante-chamber, providing access to the E and W chambers; it measures 2.8m in length and 2.2m in height, and the doors (now missing) to the flanking compartments hung on iron frames.

The E compartment measures 2.8m from N to S by 2m and 1.85m in height. The roof is of corrugated iron sheeting externally reinforced with concrete, and arches over from N to S just above ground level. The E wall is also of concrete-backed corrugated iron and this is breached in two places by circular apertures measuring about 0.35m in diameter. Situated aginst the foot of the E wall there are two concrete plinths, one supporting what appears to be a concrete sink or trough, and the second for the generator.

The W compartment measures 5.5m from E to W by 2.8m and 1.85m in height and is a longer version of the E chamber. At the W end of the chamber there is a roof aperture covered by the remains of an iron hatch.

Visited by RCAHMS (JRS), 24 June 1996.