Archaeology Notes

Event ID 689461

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/689461

NS57NW 18.01 centred 54357 77175

The accommodation camp for the heavy anti-aircraft battery is situated along the northern edge of Mugdock Wood about 116m S of the gun-emplacements.

Many concrete hut bases survive and one building stands to roof height. The remains show the outline and plan of substantially all of the original camp. The concrete bases would have probably supported Nissen huts, though the larger huts for mess and recreation would have been wooden, if they were ever built.

The hut bases can be seen clearly in vertical air photographs taken in 1946 (106G/Scot/UK 92, 4193-4194, flown 15 May 1946), which show that at this date there were no standing huts or buildings except the one that can be seen today. A further series of vertical air photographs at a larger scale provide a better impression of the layout of the camp (OS/65/131, 371-373, flown 17 July 1965). A total of 39 hut bases can be seen on both series of air photographs.

Evidence from Public Record Office (PRO) documents (WO 166/16650, 1945) suggest that this battery was never armed or used and if this was the case, it is perhaps not surprising that the camp may not have been completed.

A further three hut bases can be seen on the air photographs at c.NS 5425 7739, about 150m NW of the emplacements and on the S side of the track leading from the W gate of the park. At NS 54352 77356 is a concrete water tank.

Information from RCAHMS (DE), November 2005