South Sutor, Port War Signal Station, Engine House

Semi sunken engine house on the N side of the track to the South Sutor coast battery. This was the Royal Navy engine house for the Port War Signal Station and the controlled minefield. The bunker has two entrances at the N and S ends of a short passageway on the E side. At the NW end of the passageway is the entrance into the engine house. Another engine house lies to the WNW (see NH86NW 11.16).

Information from RCAHMS (AKK) 24 July 2013.

This engine house, which is situated in semi-improved pasture 16m E of the Fire Command Post (NH86NW 11.1), formed part of the infrastructure of the battery introduced by the Army in the Second World War. It is encased in an overgrown earthen blast wall measuring 3m in height and about 17m from E to W by 14m overall. Three pipes crowned by cylindrical cast iron ventilation cowls project through the turf on its summit. A flight of steps at the SE corner of the building leads down to a whitewashed corridor at the N end of which is another flight of steps leading up to an entrance at the building’s NE corner. A doorway at the foot of this second set of steps leads W into another corridor at the end of which is another doorway providing access to the underground engine compartment. This is rectangular on plan and measures 4.6m from N to S by 4.2m transversely within reinforced cast concrete walls about 2.55m high. Asbestos panels attached to wooden batons cover the ceiling and, although now removed, once also clad the black painted walls. Three circular apertures in the ceiling vented the compartment, while bolts in the floor indicate that engine was situated close to the W wall. Two wrapped pipes against this wall run down from the ceiling to the concrete floor, which is traversed from E to W by a duct.

The building is annotated ‘R.M. Engine Room’ (Royal Marine Engine Room) on a plan of the battery in the Fort Record Book held in the National Archives at Kew (WO78/5192). It is also visible on an RAF vertical aerial photograph (Scot-106G-RAF-0751-6036) flown on 31 August 1945 and on an oblique from the E (USN 218 206-0097) that was also flown in 1945.

Visited by HES, Survey and Recording (ATW, AKK), 18 February 2020.