World War I Battery. View of trench with gun emplacement from North

Description World War I Battery. View of trench with gun emplacement from North

Date 21/8/1997

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

Catalogue Number D 17995

Category Photographs and Off-line Digital Images

Copies SC 672878

Scope and Content World War I trench and gun emplacement, Innan Neb Battery, Flotta, Orkney Islands In both World Wars coast batteries were built to protect the channels into Scapa Flow and Kirkwall Bay, where there was an important contraband control. The greatest concentrations of firepower were at the main north-western and southern entrances to the Flow, but the other southern approach through Switha Sound also required special protection which a series of batteries on the south-western headland of Flotta, including Innan Neb, was intended to provide. Overlooking Switha Sound from a viewpoint roughly opposite that of image 672875, these are the remains of a deep access trench which linked the magazine or ammunition store, just out of view bottom left, to one of a pair of four-inch gun emplacements at the World War I Innan Neb Battery which was operational from 1915 to 1918. A flight of steps leads up from the end of the trench to the open emplacement or barbette fronted by a low parapet wall over which the gun fired. The parapet terminated at each end in box-like ready ammunition lockers, one of which is visible in this view. 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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