View of World War I gun emplacement and trench from East

Description View of World War I gun emplacement and trench from East

Date 26/5/1996

Catalogue Number C 73026 CN

Category Photographs and Off-line Digital Images

Copies SC 600937

Scope and Content World War I four-inch gun emplacement, Hoxa Battery, Hoxa Head, South Ronaldsay, 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, the latter covered by the coast batteries on Stanger Head on Flotta and here on Hoxa Head on South Ronaldsay. This view across Hoxa Sound shows, in the foreground, the perfectly preserved remains of a World War I open gun emplacement or barbette, laid out behind a pointed elliptical front wall. One of a pair at Hoxa Battery, each comprising two barbettes, four altogether, they were each designed for use with a four-inch quick fire gun, which supplemented the main armament provided by the two six-inch guns, and were intended principally for close-range combat against fast-moving light craft. A turf-covered mound at the centre of the emplacement marks the base or holdfast of the gun, and the track in the foreground is the beginning of a trench which leads back towards the magazine where the ammunition was stored. 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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