Deerness, The Ward, Chain Home Low Radar Station
Radar Station (20th Century)
Site Name Deerness, The Ward, Chain Home Low Radar Station
Classification Radar Station (20th Century)
Alternative Name(s) Raf Deerness
Canmore ID 81646
Site Number HY50NE 51
NGR HY 56892 07370
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/81646
- Council Orkney Islands
- Parish St Andrews And Deerness
- Former Region Orkney Islands Area
- Former District Orkney
- Former County Orkney
HY50NE 51 56892 07370
A Chain Home Low radar station, transmitter/receiver block at HY 5690 0736. Various radar types used inlcuding type 13 (Mk1), height finder and type 51, a high power surface watching set which was similar in appearance to the type 52 (for tracking shipping). Only three type 51 stations were built in the United Kingdom, Deerness being the only one in Scotland.
Information from Mr I Brown, October 1998.
The remains of Deerness Radar Station are situated on the summit of a low hill annotated as 'The Ward' on Ordnance Survey maps about 210m NW of Seatter farmsteading.
The remains consist of two brick walled enclosures at HY 56894 07575 and HY 56906 07539, a brick and concrete building at HY 56930 07466 which retains the blast wall protecting the SW side and 22m to the NE is a structure (HY 56958 07474), which has had the roof, probably of corrugated iron, removed. One upstanding element remains of the latter building, a single storey concrete building.
At HY 56892 07370 is a rectangular concrete building about 19m in length and 6.5m in breadth with, at the S end, four concrete plinths for a mast. The building has openings for three windows on each side with a further two small openings at each end. The S end has a blast wall and the N end a small extension also protected by a blast wall. This building along with the radar aerial and mast is seen in archival photographs (RCAHMS 1997) taken in c.1941
About 40m to the N is an underground bunker, which is of a later date than the WW II remains.
The radar station is visible on a WW II RAF vertical air photograph (WL/10, 2.46, flown 4 July 1942), which shows all of the buildings and structures noted above except the underground bunker.
Visited by RCAHMS (DE, GS), August 1999.
