Interior. Detail of boxes with spare parts

Description Interior. Detail of boxes with spare parts

Date 3/10/1996

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

Catalogue Number SC 654377

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of D 3107

Scope and Content Equipment boxes, pumping station, World War I and II Naval Base, Lyness, Hoy, Orkney Islands At Lyness on Hoy, close to the sounds which made up the main fleet anchorage, naval quarters, stores and an oil depot were established during World War I and were considerably developed in World War II to become the Base Headquarters, HMS Proserpine. As a naval oil terminal the base came to include 16 above-ground oil storage tanks and, beneath the nearby hill of Wee Fea, six very large underground fuel tanks which were capable of storing some 100,000 tons of oil. In 1937 the contract for building the underground tanks went to Sir William Arrol & Co Ltd and work continued through to 1943 when the project was aborted. These tanks lie about 90m above and some 1.86km west of the original (1917) pumping station at the Lyness waterfront. An additional, intermediate pumping station was thus required; designed and built by Arrols in 1937, it stands on the hillside roughly halfway between the Lyness station and the tanks under Wee Fea. The interior of the intermediate pumping station remains remarkably complete with all its tools and equipment, even down to boxes of spare parts such as these. It stands as it was on the last day of operation in 1979 when the last of the oil was pumped out and the buildings and plant finally abandoned. Between the closure of the Lyness base in 1957 and 1979 the refuelling facility continued to be operated by the Ministry of Defence. 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.

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/collection/654377

File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap