North Sutor, Coast Battery, Engine House

The location of the engine house for the First World War 4-inch QF battery lies at the top of the site. It was situated in a deep rock pit, with a large thick stone wall on its S side. The pit has been used as a dump, mostly for barbed wire.

Information from RCAHMS (AKK) 30 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 pit, which once contained an engine-house, is situated at the end of the road leading WSW from the North Sutor battery. It measures 16m from N to S but it has been partly infilled from the E so that its present measurement of 14.5m from E to W is several metres short of its original length. It is at 4m deep. On the S, the pit is defined by a concrete-capped, stone wall measuring 21m in length that is heavily battered on the N and fronted on the S by a bund up to 20m thick. There is an equally substantial bank on the W, while on the N, where the pit has been cut into the natural slope, only a short length of the face of a revetment wall is visible. The E side is hidden behind the earth and rubbish that has been dumped into the interior, including amongst it many coils of barbed wire entangled with corkscrew picket posts.

The engine house is shown upon plans of the North Sutor held by the National Archives at Kew (WO78/5192), one of which is dated to 1 May 1913.

Visited by HES, Survey and Recording (ATW, AKK, KLG), 28 March 2019.