Archaeology Notes
Event ID 860515
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Archaeology Notes
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/860515
NN00NE 147 centred 07414 05265 and 07512 05552
For S Camp see also NN00SE 46
A large military camp has been identified from vertical air photographs(106G/Scot/UK 160, frames 3304-3306, flown 21 August 1946), to the N of the Douglas Water, between the main A83 trunk road and the high water mark on Loch Fyne.
The camp occupies about 10.7 hectares and is now the site of a large caravan site and park. The present site office (NN00NE 118) lies within the area where the huts once stood. The training centre forms one of a series of Combined Operations camps around Inveraray.
Slipways and piers for the training camp are still extant at NN 07541 05120, NN 07496 05215, NN 07507 05229 and NN 07505 05302 and the concrete bases for huts and buildings have been utilised for the caravan park.
The vertical air photographs from 1946 (ibid), show almost the full extant of this base with the main area of at least 60 huts centred at NN 07512 05552 and a group of three larger sheds immediately above the shore at NN 07512 0552. Two of the sheds are of the same type with pitched roofs and one has a saw-tooth roof.
A further camp S of the Douglas Water (NN00SE 46) was an extension of this Military Headquarters.
The N camp was a base for the training of military personnel in Combined Operations and the base was known as HMS Quebec or Kilbride Camp and a building at NN 07474 05530 is annotated on current OS digital maps as 'Quebec Cottage.
HMS Quebec was formed after Mountbatten had proposed the idea of Royal Navy Beach Signals training and following this it became part of the No 1 Combined Training Centre Combined Signals School (CSS) in November 1941.
HMS Quebec's primary role was to provide and maintain landing and other craft for amphibious operations.
This part of the camp is visible on RAF WW II oblique air photographs (B309, frame nos.3399, flown 3 June 1941), whilst under construction.
Information from RCAHMS (DE), JUly 2008
Large shed noted near the entrance to the Caravan Park at NN 07312 05423 with other huts within the park.
