Rerwick Head Battery, Nos. 1 And 2 Guns
Gun Emplacement(S) (20th Century), Magazine (20th Century)
Site Name Rerwick Head Battery, Nos. 1 And 2 Guns
Classification Gun Emplacement(S) (20th Century), Magazine (20th Century)
Alternative Name(s) Cenand Sur
Canmore ID 269742
Site Number HY51SW 10.01
NGR HY 54105 11899
NGR Description HY 54105 11899, HY 54118 11875 and HY 54098 11885
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/269742
- Council Orkney Islands
- Parish St Andrews And Deerness
- Former Region Orkney Islands Area
- Former District Orkney
- Former County Orkney
HY51SW 10.01 54105 11899, 54118 11875 and 54098 11885
Two large shuttered concrete gun-emplacements are situated on a level piece of ground at Rerwick Head, annotated 'Cenand Sur' on the current OS 1:2500 scale digital map. One emplacement faces E whilst the second faces N. Immediately to the rear of both gun platforms are shuttered concrete crew shelters and S of the more northerly emplacement is a sunken concrete magazine. The gun-emplacements retain their canopies and steel RSG supports and both have bronze holdfasts which reproduce a ship mounted training race calibrated to 360 degrees.
In the elevations of both crew shelters are redented slits.
About 8.7m N of No.2 gun-emplacement is an open gun mounting and holdfast for a 4.7-inch calibre gun. A circle of bolts set in a concrete platform are visible in the short grass.
Documentation held in the Public Record Office (WO 192/264) in the form of the gun record book show a layout plan of the battery and notes the two gun-emplacements as No.1 (that to the S) and No.2 (to the N). In 1940 the battery was armed with two 4.7-inch guns, which were exchanged in 1941 for two 6-inch Naval Mk VII guns removed from HMS Iron Duke (WO 199/2627). Both emplacements are visible on RAF vertical air photographs (106G/Scot/UK 137, 4038-4039, flown 3 July 1946), which show the two 6-inch guns still in place.
The remains of a partially dismantled temporary air-raid shelter were noted immediately to the W of the gun-emplacements. The entrance is of wooden 'props' and the whole covered in earth.
Visited by RCAHMS (DE, GS, SW), August 1999
