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Field Visit
Date 18 February 2020
Event ID 1125146
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1125146
This engine house, which is situated in semi-improved pasture 40m NW of the Fire Command Post (NH86NW 11.1), formed part of the infrastructure of the battery introduced by the Army in the Second World War. It is encased within an overgrown earthen blast wall that measures 2.5m in height and about 16m from NE to SW by 14m overall. A flight of steps at the SE corner of the building leads down to a whitewashed corridor at the NW end of which is another flight of steps leading up to another external entrance. This corridor is crossed part way down by a timber duct for cables, but before that an entrance at the foot of the first set of steps leads SW into another long corridor at the end of which is a doorway providing access to the underground engine compartment. This is rectangular on plan and measures 4.25m from NE to SW by 3.55m transversely within reinforced cast concrete walls about 2.55m high. Asbestos panels attached to wooden batons cover the ceiling and, although now removed, once also once clad the black painted walls. A stub wall extending from the NW wall adjacent to the N corner of the compartment protects an entrance leading into a blind corridor of unknown purpose. Bolts in the floor indicate that the engine was situated about 1m SW of the stub wall and orientated from NW to SE. A duct in the floor at the foot of the NW wall runs between the engine and the stub wall.
The building is annotated ‘R.M. Engine Room’ (Royal Marine Engine Room) on a plan of the battery in the Fort Record Book held in the National Archives at Kew (WO78/5192). It is also visible on an RAF vertical aerial photograph (Scot-106G-RAF-0751-6036) flown on 31 August 1945 and on an oblique from the E (USN 218 206-0097) that was also flown in 1945.
Visited by HES, Survey and Recording (ATW, AKK), 18 February 2020.
