View of small building to NE of radar mast from NW.

Description View of small building to NE of radar mast from NW.

Date 24/8/1997

Catalogue Number D 21729

Category Photographs and Off-line Digital Images

Copies SC 642944

Scope and Content World War II Chain Home Extra Low radar station, The Ward, Deerness, Mainland, Orkney Islands From the outbreak of World War II in 1939 early warning of the movement of enemy aircraft was based on Chain Home systems of Radio Direction Finding (RDF) or radar, as it became known, a technique which had been developed in secret since 1935. Forming part of an East Coast Chain Home series which provided long-range detection, two stations were installed in Orkney, one at Netherbutton on East Mainland, about 9.6km south of Kirkwall, and another at Whale Head, close to the north-eastern tip of Sanday. The main features of the stations were the receiver blocks and transmitter blocks with their associated masts and generators for the electricity power supply. In order to remain operational in the event of attack or damage, most Chain Home stations, including the two Orkney sites, also had standby generators and held duplicate equipment in reserve installations which were described as buried or remote. Fuller coverage of Orkney was also provided by a small number of Chain Home Low and Chain Home Extra Low stations, which, as their names imply, were designed to detect low-flying aircraft operating below the range of the Chain Home system. This unremarkable little building, built of rendered brickwork with a single-pitch corrugated roof, stands at one end of a low walled enclosure, now filled with rubbish but originally designed to accommodate the gantry and aerial of a Chain Home Extra Low radar unit, supplementing the coverage provided by the Chain Home Low installation on this commanding hilltop site. 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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