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Aberdeen Harbour, 'blockhouse'

Battery (17th Century)

Site Name Aberdeen Harbour, 'blockhouse'

Classification Battery (17th Century)

Alternative Name(s) Sandness

Canmore ID 104075

Site Number NJ90NE 31

NGR NJ 95 05

NGR Description NJ c. 95 05

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/104075

Ordnance Survey licence number AC0000807262. All rights reserved.
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Administrative Areas

  • Council Aberdeen, City Of
  • Parish Aberdeen
  • Former Region Grampian
  • Former District City Of Aberdeen
  • Former County Aberdeenshire

Archaeology Notes

NJ90NE 31 c. 95 05

For Aberdeen Harbour (centred NJ 95 05), see NJ90NE 7.00.

The defence of Aberdeen Harbour (NJ90NW 291.00 and NJ90NE 7.00) was in the hands of the town itself and not of the central government, just as had been the case at Dunbar (NT67NE 18) in 1781. According to Gordon's account, a fort divided into rooms, presumably casemates, was established on Sandness in 1513 but only completed in 1542; its purpose was to repel attacks from the sea or at least to keep observation on pirates' attempts. It was furnished with brass or bronze guns. When an emergency arose in the course of the 1540's, it was still unfinished and had to be covered with turf and given a 'half-roof'; the entrance-channel was also blocked with a boom of timbers and iron chains, which could be opened or closed as required. These arrangements, however, went out of use and subsequently the blockhouse was only manned when the townsmen were alarmed by inroads of enemies or pirates.

The structure that is depicted by Slezer more than a century later seems to have been oblong on plan with a rounded end which faced the inner end of the channel. The drawing shows wide gun-loops at two levels, presumably representing ground-floor rooms and a high roof-parapet with loops instead of embrasures. A small cap-house suggests an internal stair giving access to the roof in the fashion of a Martello tower. The dimensions, whether or not of the same building, have been given as 36 ft by 18 ft (11 by 5.5m) and the thickness of the wall as 6 ft (1.8m). In 1781 the blockhouse was demolished and its ten new twelve-pounders were moved to a rather more elevated position, but this battery proved useless when, in the same year, Captain Fall, the American privateer who had attempted a raid on Dunbar, successfully cut out two vessels from under its guns.

A further defensive measure was the provision of a watch-tower on the opposite side of the entrance with a bell to be rung as a warning of the approach of ships.

J A Slezer 1693; Stat Acct 1791-9; J Robertson 1839; W Macfarlane 1906-8; A Graham 1979.

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