View of gun emplacements from Martello tower to South East.

Description View of gun emplacements from Martello tower to South East.

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

Catalogue Number SC 672734

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of C 66934 CN

Scope and Content Gun emplacements, Hackness Battery, South Walls, Hoy, Orkney Islands Recognition of the strategic importance of Scapa Flow grew in the late 19th and early 20th centuries when it was realised that the greatest challenge to British naval supremacy was no longer France but Germany. However, prior to 1914, the government's only significant investment in military architecture in this area was in 1813-15 when coastal defences were built at the entrance to Long Hope. This sheltered inlet, which opens off the south-west corner of Scapa Flow, then served as an assembly-point and anchorage for convoys of sailing ships on the long north-about route around Britain avoiding the English Channel. Designed to provide protection from French and American privateers, the defences were completed only after peace with America had been concluded and shortly before the final collapse of Napoleonic France in 1815. They consisted of a gun battery at Hackness and two cylindrical gun towers known as Martello Towers, one at Hackness and the other at Crockness. Based on the design of a coastal tower at Mortella Point in Corsica which had so impressed the Royal Navy with its robust defensive capabilities in 1794, Martello Towers were built in some numbers on the English south coast, but only one other was erected in Scotland, at Leith Harbour. This is a view from the top of Hackness Martello Tower, showing, in the foreground, the gun emplacements and associated magazines or ammunition stores of Hackness Battery, facing across Switha Sound (right). The battery was originally equipped with eight 24-pounder guns which were positioned to fire over the parapet. In 1866 the possibility of war with France or Russia, provoked by trouble in Ireland, led to a re-equipping and remodelling of the battery for use with four larger 68-pounder guns which fired through embrasures in the curtain wall. The building to the left served as the officers' quarters with the soldier barracks behind. 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/672734

File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap