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Note
Date 23 July 2013
Event ID 962730
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Note
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/962730
Plans were drawn up in the spring of 1913 for the construction of coast defences on the South Sutor to protect the fleet anchorage in the Cromarty Firth. The main armament on the South Sutor was a single 9.2-inch gun (NH86NW 11.03), the calibre of coast gun intended to tackle the largest size of enemy warship that might attack. There was also a battery of two 4-inch Quick Firing guns (NH86NW 11.08), intended to tackle smaller, faster-moving enemy boats, such as destroyers or fast motor boats.
The gun emplacements on the South Sutor were constructed in 1913. In a unique case the batteries at the South and North Sutors were built not by the army, but by the Admiralty and manned by the Royal Marines. As a result the batteries have a very different design to those at other coast batteries in the UK. There are two First World War batteries on the South Sutor and two on the North Sutor numbered 1-4 on the construction plans (The National Archive WO 78/5192). The main site on the South Sutor (site no.4) comprised a single 9.2-inch gun. The second battery (site No. 3) was for two 4-inch quick firing (QF) guns. Each battery had its own accommodation, power houses, searchlights and cook house. Access to site No. 3 was particularly difficult as it lies at the bottom of an extremely steep hill.
In 1939 the main South Sutor battery (site No. 4) was completely rebuilt with new buildings, a new access road and two 6-inch guns replacing the earlier single 9.2-inch gun. One gun (No. 2 gun) made use of the First World War magazine, but a new gun house was built to the north of the original 9.2-inch emplacement. A new gun emplacement was built to the south of the First World War emplacement, and comprised a gun house and new magazine. The magazine is identical to the 6-inch emplacement at Ness Battery (see HY20NW 27). The buildings within the battery were mostly new and a large Battery Observation Post (BOP) built. The battery, according to the Fort Record Book (The National Archives WO 192/248) was constructed during 1939 and the guns were operational on the 11th November 1939 and the searchlights completed by end of December 1939.
The 4-inch QF battery (site no. 3) was not re-used in the Second World War, although a brick building, possibly of Second World War date may suggest some activity here, however it was out of use and unroofed on a 1945 vertical air photographs (106G/UK/751, 6035-7, flown 31 August 1945).
A Royal Navy Port War Signal Station, Mine Watching Service and associated Naval camp site was established above the Second World War Battery.
The Battery was protected on the landward side in both the First and Second World Wars. In the First World War a system of trenches and barbed wire stretched across the headland from Marquis's Cave to the coast road below Newton of Cromarty Farm. In the Second World War 1945 vertical air photographs (106G/UK/751, 6035-7, flown 31 August 1945) show a system of barbed wire fences and firing positions enclosing the radar station and the battery.
After the war the battery was placed in care and maintenance and closed in 1956. It was used as a TA centre after that for a period of time.
Information from RCAHMS (AKK) 23 July 2013.
