South Sutor, Coast Battery, Engine House

An engine house, annotated as 'Power House' on a plan of the site (The National Archives WO 78/5192).

A later structure on the site of the power house comprising a large concrete base with a brick building of unknown purpose constructed on top may date to a later building phase during the First World War or a Second World War building which was abandoned and unroofed by August 1945 (106G/UK/751, 6035-6037, flown 31 August 1945).

Information from RCAHMS (AKK) 25 July 2013.

A project to characterise the quantity and quality of the Scottish resource of known surviving remains of the First World War. Carried out in partnership between Historic Scotland and RCAHMS.

This building, which is situated 35m E of the gun emplacement, formed part of the infrastructure of the battery introduced by the Admiralty in the First World War. It is terraced into the steep NW-facing slope and occupies a massive rectangular concrete plinth 3.2m above the falling ground. The building measures 10m from NE to SW by 6.2.m transversely within cement brick and concrete walls up to 0.3m in thick and 3.15m high. It exhibits two phases of construction, the first comprising the SE half of the building, the second its NW half. The earlier building is represented by a reinforced cast concrete wall on the SE linked with wings extending SW and NE, which may have been tied to a timber-frame clad originally with corrugated iron sheets. It appears to have been accessed from an entrance on the NW, where a path rounding the W corner of the building leads out on to a veranda supported by a series of steel beams jutting out from the plinth. It is not known how this building was roofed, but in the later phase, the veranda was demolished, the NE half of the building was rebuilt in pale cement bricks, with gable ends indicating a flat roof sloping down from NE to SW. Access was now by a door on the SW, while narrow windows were introduced either side of the N corner along with two twice their size on the NW. These all have wooden lintels and concrete sills. In addition, two rectangular vents are situated above those in the NW wall.

Internal features are few. What appear to have been the brick-built footings of a partition cross the concrete floor from NW to SE, creating a small compartment at the NE end of the building. There is circular drain in the NE wall adjacent to the N corner, while the function of a narrow concrete plinth against the SE wall at the compartment’s W corner is not known. Adjacent scars on the NE wall possibly indicate the former presence of two similar supports. Holes filled with wooden plugs in the concrete walls mark the position of former fittings, while large circular apertures for cables are visible in the SW face of the plinth.

The building is annotated ‘Power House’ on plans of the battery in the Fort Record Book held in the National Archives at Kew (WO78/5192 15/19 and 18/19). A photograph (SC1116235), taken on 29 August 1913 from a path to the W of the barracks (NH86NW 11.42), shows that the engine house had still to be constructed, although the concrete foundations seem to be in place. The date of the reconstruction is not known, but it is possible this occurred during the Second World War and that it was connected with a building on Site No.2 (NH86NW 33) situated on the N Sutor, as they use the same bricks laid in the same configuration. The engine house is visible on an RAF aerial photograph (GB 551 174) flown on 31 August 1945, but by this date its roof had already been removed.

Visited by HES, Survey and Recording (ATW, AKK), 20 February 2020.