Braefoot Point Battery, Battery Observation Post

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.

The Battery Observation Post (BOP), which is situated 28m N of the twin main guns (NT18SE 25.01), comprises three elements – an observation room, a telephone room attached to its SW side, and an Officers’ Room immediately to the rear, all with flat roofs. The observation room comprises a single compartment half sunk into the ground with a broad viewing opening towards the SE and a doorway on the NW. It measures 3.36m from NE to SW by 3.05m transversely and its roof , which has been extended on steel beams to form a canopy over the opening, dips slightly to the SE. The only internal feature is a 1.22m (4ft) high concrete pedestal on which Depression Range Finding equipment was once mounted. The telephone room sits even lower than the observation room and its doorway on the SW is reached by way of a short flight of steps. Both the doorway and an adjacent window were blocked on the date of visit and entry to the interior was therefore not possible. Neither was it possible to access the Officers’ Room which measures 3.54m square overall and has a blocked doorway and window on its SE side.

The BOP is depicted in its present position on the 1918 Ordnance Survey plan of the battery but the 1912 War Department design plan reveals that the original intention was to site the BOP on the steep SE-facing slope immediately NW of and above Gun No.2, the NE of the pair. This change of plan necessitated the digging of a rock-cut path from the rear of the guns to the new site of the BOP. Depicted on the 1918 OS plan and still extant, the path measures 35m in length, with the rock-cut portion at the SW end 1.6m in width and up to 1.9m in depth.

Visited by HES Archaeological Survey (J. Sherriff, A. McCaig), 9 August 2022.

Ordnance Survey 1918. 1:360 scale plan of Special Survey War Department Site at Braefoot Point, Fifeshire - NLS: MapArea.C18:13(05).

War Office 1912. Plan, elevations and other details of the proposed gun battery at Braefoot Point. The National Archives, WO 78/5169.

HES surveyed the Battery Observation Post at Braefoot Point Battery on 9 August 2022 with tape and laser distance measurer at a scale of 1:50. The resultant plan was redrawn in vector graphics software at a scale of 1:100.