Field Visit
Date 19 February 2020
Event ID 1125166
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1125166
This double gun emplacement, which is dug into a steep ENE-facing slope about 45m ENE of the engine house (NH86NW 11.19), formed part of the infrastructure of the battery introduced by the Admiralty in the First World War. Now greatly obscured by bracken and rushes, it was originally equipped with two 4-inch quick-firing guns affixed to holdfasts on rectangular concrete platforms extending like wings from a linking platform in front of the rest of the emplacement. Although only a small proportion of the holdfasts are visible, they stand about 20m apart behind the parapets of two low semi-circular concrete aprons facing out across the firth.
The main bulk of the emplacement is rectangular on plan and measures about 17m from ENE to WSW by 9m transversely. A wall rising behind the platform between the two wings retains a bracken- and grass-grown bank that slopes up to a horizontal surface. In the centre of this stands a square-sectioned ranging pillar measuring 0.98m in height, while close by is a square vent surrounded by a concrete collar. Symmetrical staircases of concrete either side of this bank lead down to a passage that provides access to an underground magazine. The cement rendered walls of both stairwells retain a colourwash for camouflage, but this is best preserved on the WNW, where bold curvilinear blues, pinks and yellows blend into one another. This forms a sharp contrast with the corridor running between the stairwells, where the cement rendered walls and ceiling have been simply whitewashed. The ENE wall and the roof of the corridor is a quarter round in cross-section. The ESE length measures 1.5m broad and 2.26m high, while the W length is wider and measures 2.84m broad and 2.6m high. However, a telephone booth measuring 1.82m from WNW to ESE by 1.1m transversely within what was once a part timber and part-concrete wall 0.21m in thick and 2.31m high occupies its ESE end. The booth’s SW elevation contained a central doorway with quarter round-topped windows either side. There are traces of wooden boards for electrical equipment on the inside walls. The broader corridor beyond this bears further marks on the wall that may be consistent with a low bench along the ENE wall and its use as a crew shelter. A bulkhead light was fixed above this. A doorway with chamfered edges in the SSW wall provides access to the shell store, which is the more westerly of two compartments forming the magazine. It measures 4.6m from ENE to WSW by 3.35m transversely within concrete walls up to 0.85m thick and 2.28m high. The interior is lit by a large metal-framed window to the WNW of the door, which is protected externally by iron bars. There are traces of bulkhead lights to either side of the window close to the ceiling, where there is a rectangular vent just above the ESE jamb. A doorway with chamfered edges in the ESE wall leads directly into the Cordite Store, which measures 6.1m from ENE to WSW by 3.35m transversely within walls 0.85m in thick and 2.28m high. Two small rectangular hatches in the ENE wall light the interior, but these could be closed in the corridor by metal shutters although these are now missing.
A gun-crew shelter, which is situated 3m SSW of the ESE gun holdfast, is terraced back into the steep ENE-facing slope, but only the WNW end of the building and part of the rear wall survives. This fragment indicates that it was rectangular on plan, but what remains measures only 1.8m from NW to SE by 1.4m transversely within whitewashed brick walls 0.3m in thick and at least 1.35m high. There are two rectangular putlogs located above one another in the rear wall, indicating a partition between two cubicles. A water pipe emerges from the earth above the wall.
The gun emplacement is shown on plans of the battery in the Fort Record Book held in the National Archives at Kew (WO78/5192 15/19 and 18/19). A photograph (SC1116238) taken from the SE on 29 August 1913 illustrates the underground magazine under construction.
Visited by HES, Survey and Recording (ATW, AKK), 19 February 2020.
