| 1170054 |
RECORDING |
FIELD VISIT |
This gun emplacement is situated on the highest part of Downing Point on the N shore of the Firth of Forth, where it formed part of the most powerful naval fortress in the British Empire during the First World War (Barclay and Morris 2019, v). The summit of the crag has been levelled and provided with a foundation made up of pebble-rich concrete slabs, which is tightly enclosed within the remains of a grass-, bramble and ivy-grown bund measuring 3.7m in thickness and up to 1.2m in height externally on the S. This is broken only by the aprons (or glacis) in front of the guns on the SSE, by a plinth for a hoist on the N and by a recent cut through the earthworks on the W. The original approach to the emplacement seems to have been by a path up the NW side of the crag (roughly where the present-day steps are situated), extending almost to the edge of the cliff before turning sharply to enter the battery from the SW through a partly infilled cut in the embankment. The internal area was later reduced on the W when a narrower bank, now much eroded, was constructed running from N to S across the summit of the crag almost immediately W of this entrance. [...] |
5 December 2023 |
