Archaeology Notes

Event ID 677410

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/677410

HY51SW 10.01 54105 11899, 54118 11875 and 54098 11885

Two large shuttered concrete gun-emplacements are situated on a level piece of ground at Rerwick Head, annotated 'Cenand Sur' on the current OS 1:2500 scale digital map. One emplacement faces E whilst the second faces N. Immediately to the rear of both gun platforms are shuttered concrete crew shelters and S of the more northerly emplacement is a sunken concrete magazine. The gun-emplacements retain their canopies and steel RSG supports and both have bronze holdfasts which reproduce a ship mounted training race calibrated to 360 degrees.

In the elevations of both crew shelters are redented slits.

About 8.7m N of No.2 gun-emplacement is an open gun mounting and holdfast for a 4.7-inch calibre gun. A circle of bolts set in a concrete platform are visible in the short grass.

Documentation held in the Public Record Office (WO 192/264) in the form of the gun record book show a layout plan of the battery and notes the two gun-emplacements as No.1 (that to the S) and No.2 (to the N). In 1940 the battery was armed with two 4.7-inch guns, which were exchanged in 1941 for two 6-inch Naval Mk VII guns removed from HMS Iron Duke (WO 199/2627). Both emplacements are visible on RAF vertical air photographs (106G/Scot/UK 137, 4038-4039, flown 3 July 1946), which show the two 6-inch guns still in place.

The remains of a partially dismantled temporary air-raid shelter were noted immediately to the W of the gun-emplacements. The entrance is of wooden 'props' and the whole covered in earth.

Visited by RCAHMS (DE, GS, SW), August 1999