Kincraig Battery

This searchlight emplacement is terraced back into the cliff face about 45m WSW of the transmission-receiver block (NT49NE 44.1) that forms part of the radar station which served the Kincraig Battery (NT49NE 44). It is reached from the cliff top by a flight of concrete steps that leads down on to a platform from which access to the interior of the building is had via another shorter flight of steps which runs up to a broad SSW facing entrance. This leads into a small brick-built porch situated at the NW corner of the building, which is an addition to the main structure. The porch is capped by a flat reinforced cast concrete roof with an upturned rim supported by broad concrete beams. There are traces of bitumen weather-proofing on the roof. The interior of the porch has been painted blue and there is a wooden baton for coat hooks high up on the WNW wall. The main building is rectangular on plan and measures 5.2m from NNE to SSW by 2.94m transversely within brick walls 0.35m in thickness and up to 2.6m in height. Its flat roof is similar to that over the lobby, but the rim which is more pronouncedly zig-zagged is pierced on the SSW for drainage. This is aided by a slight downward incline to the canopy overhanging the broad wraparound window that looks out on to the Firth of Forth. Scars on the floor and on the WNW and ESE walls suggest that the interior of the building may once have been subdivided. The rear of the building preserves traces of whitewash, while the front preserves traces of blue. Crudely cut gun loops in the rear have been carved through the ESE and WNW walls. There are marks of shutters around them and of firing shelfs below. What may be a stance for a stove abuts the ESE wall with an aperture for the chimney pipe passing through the wall above. A setting of bolts in the concrete floor situated directly below a vent in the roof marks the position of the searchlight. This location is approached by a duct for the cabling running from the middle of the ESE wall of the building. The aperture of the wraparound window is 1.96m in height, while the parapet wall below rises to a height of 0.66m. its lintel and the canopy above retain fixings for the shutters by which the direction of the searchlight’s beam could be controlled.

The searchlight emplacement is shown on a plan of the battery entitled ‘Secret Copy Drg No East/FSS/51’, dated ‘22.7.42’, which is included within the Fort Record Book (WO192/255) held by the National Archives at Kew. It was introduced following the reorganisation of the battery in 1942, when it was paired with a pre-existing searchlight (NT49NE 44.4) located further east (Barclay and Morris 2019, 217). The roof’s wavy outline was designed to break up the lines of the building making it more difficult to pick out from the air, while the raised lip at its edge was intended to facilitate its camouflaging with soil and vegetation. However, there is nothing to indicate that it was disguised in this way either on the series of undated aerial photographs which are also included in the Fort Record Book, or on an aerial photograph (Scot/106G/UK/ 0981 4345) flown on 30 November 1944. This image shows the porch, which appears to be an addition. The searchlight along with its pair was finally decommissioned along with the rest of the coastal battery in 1956.

Visited by HES Archaeological Survey (A. K. Kilpatrick, P.M. Bethune), 7 November 2023