Reservoir, view from South West.

Description Reservoir, view from South West.

Date 23/5/1997

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

Catalogue Number D 21629 CN

Category Photographs and Off-line Digital Images

Copies SC 670091

Scope and Content Water reservoir, World War II signal station and coast battery, Stanger Head, Flotta, Orkney Islands In World War II military activities in and around Scapa Flow generated a complex communications network of wireless, cabled and manual signals equipment associated with all three armed services. These ranged from traditional methods of intelligence-gathering, monitoring and signalling, as practised in World War I, to the sophisticated systems of detection and communication which developments in radio and radar offered. The Royal Navy possessed its own radar network (known as AES, Admiralty Experimental Stations) with at least one station in Orkney, on Ward Hill in South Ronaldsay, but its land-based communications operated mainly through a local group of Port War Signal Stations at Stromness (Ness Battery), Kirkwall (Rerwick Head), Lyness and here at Stanger Head on Flotta, where this range of brick buildings, grouped around a four-storeyed tower, replaced a World War I signal station which had stood on the western side of the island, centred upon an equally lofty but timber-built tower designed in the manner of a ship's superstructure, complete with bridge. This general view inland from Stanger Head shows a water reservoir with its concrete dam wall and associated pump house. The Royal Navy's signal station campsite lies out of sight to the left while the precincts of the Army's coast battery are likewise just out of view to the right. A large area upslope of the reservoir is defined by a low concrete wall and represents an extension to the water catchment created in the autumn of 1939 when this barren but vitally important headland saw a great influx of military personnel. 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.

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