Falside Hill, Anti-invasion Defences

Three maps of 1916 on a War Department map (The National Archives WO 78/4396) shows a north-south line of defence about 4.5km long between the coast and just SW of the village of Elphingstone. The defence line is not continuous.

The northernmost defensive position was formed of the eastern and southern boundary wall of Preston Grange House with, to the east, two lines of barbed wire entanglement (see NT37SE 2.01).

The main road through Dolphington was covered by three large firing trenches and a length of defensible wall at Bankhead cottage. A line of barbed wire 450m long ran NW-SE from Dolphington Toll.

The heaviest defences were concentrated on the eastern flank and the summit of Falside Hill, where there were two large sections of firing trench, totalling 1km in length, with complex communication trenches behind (to the west. Both sections of trench were covered by barbed wire entanglements. There were two subsidairy firing trenches on the rear (west) side of the hill.

The southernmost element of the line (comprising four small firing trenches) lay just to the west of Elphingstone Tower.

Information from HS/RCAHMS World War One Audit Project (GJB) 10 September 2013.