Archaeology Notes

Event ID 757087

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/757087

NK14SW 71.00 centred 1120 4085

NK14SW 71.01 centred NK 1300 4205 RAF Buchan, accommodation area (domestic site)

For Hill of Longhaven, radio station (centred NK 0847 4171), see NK04SE 61.

NK 1240 4140. Stirling Hill: World War II radar site: still in use by MoD.

NMRS, MS/712/36.

(Location amended to centred NK 1120 4085). Vertical air photography (Fairey Coastal Colour 7343/7/627-8, flown 17 August 1973) has recorded a major air defence/early warning radar station at an altitude of just over 95m OD on an unnamed hill to the S of the main block of Stirling Hill.

The station has evidently been built around a massive static early warning radar antenna (NK c. 1140 4109) with a small adjoining building. This antenna was of elongated curviform and plate construction reinforced by latticework rear supports; it was rotating at the time of imagery. About 140m to the S (NK c. 1132 4097) and adjacent to the junction of four tracks, there is a small rectangular operations-type building, apparently of single-storey construction and with probable ventilation equipment on its flat roof. To the S, SW and W of this building (towards the entrance to the site) there are various utility-type buildings, a car park and a helicopter landing circle. To the SE of this building (centred at NK 1150 4100) there is a Bloodhound surface-to-air missile site, comprising what are probably five launchers (one with a missile erected), a launch control radar and a control building set in a depression.

Further oblique imagery (AAS 1981) records the addition of a radome of considerable size, but the available earlier imagery (CPE/Scot/313 1056-7, flown 8 March 1948) provides no definite indication of previous military use of the area.

Information from RCAHMS (RJCM), 26 February 1999.

RAF Buchan was put up for sale in March 2005. The base had been heavily rebuilt during 1992 and comprises 8.7 hectares.

The site includes, a two storey office block, medical centre, 46 bed Officer's mess, 31 bed Seargant's mess, chapel, children's nursery, motor transport buildings, warhousing, gymnasium hall and ancilliary buildings.

Information from The Scotsman (classified Commercial Property section), 8 March 2005

Although there were plans prepared for a radar station to be built here during World War II, this does not appear to have happened.

Information from Mr I Brown, Radar Archive, 21 October 2005