Archaeology Notes

Event ID 645519

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/645519

NS65NE 43 6818 5985

This four gun-emplacement battery is situated immediately E of the main Glasgow-London railway. Consisiting of four emplacements, ammunition lockers, command post and the GL mat (gun laying radar hexagon) to the NE. The accommodation camp was situated adjacent to the B758 public road.

Information from RCAHMS (DE) July 1997

This World War II heavy anti-aircraft battery is situated to the N of the railway line and W of Blantyre Farm Road. Consisting of six gun-emplacements, command post, magazines and a gun store all still extant, a spoil heap is now encroaching on the site and one or two other buildings are partly buried.

The battery was armed with four 4.5-inch guns.

J Guy 2001; NMRS MS 810/11, Part 3, 229-230; Vol.2 (appendix), 23

Two gun emplacements were added later in the Second World War, though the documents in the National Archives (Public Record Office) do not record this. Designated S1 or GSG1 as part of the Clyde Defences, the documents show that it was equipped with four 4.5-inch guns in 1942-43, but by 1945 had been re-equipped with four 3.7-inch guns. In addtion between 1942 and 1943 a Gl (gun-laying) Mk II radar set was in operation.

The battery is visible on an RAF WW II oblique aerial photograph (F309, 3648, flown 6 June 1941), which shows that at this date only four gun-emplacements had been built.

A recent site visit in September 2006 noted that the heavy anti-aircraft battery was still as Mr Guy had noted in 2001.

Visited by RCAHMS (MMD, EL), 5 September 2006