On a sunny, but bitterly cold April morning I took a walk from Cramond, through Dalmeny Estate, to South Queensferry. Following Cycle Route 76, I walked through the top of the estate and round and down to Hound Point. By Fishery Cottage, I cut up the hill and through the woods to the concrete remains of the Hound Point Battery, an old First World War coastal defences site. There I had a good look about as the trees all around swayed and creaked in the wind.
Hound
point Battery was part of a defensive system built along the coast of the UK
that stretched from Shetland to Cornwall.
Building work began on the Battery before the start of World War One and
it was operational by 1914. The Battery consisted
of two gun emplacements at the top of the hill overlooking the Firth of Forth, and
a magazine building to the rear and slightly further down the hill. While it was operational the perimeter of the
Battery would have been surrounded by blockhouses and a barbed wire fence. When it was armed in 1914 the Battery had two
BL 6-inch Mk VII guns, however these were removed in 1915 and transferred to another
battery at Leith Docks. The guns were
then replaced in 1916 with two 12 pounder Quick Firing Naval 18cwt guns. These were dismounted and removed in 1922.
In
September 1914, the Battery at Hound Point opened fire on a suspected enemy submarine
out in the Firth of Forth. However, one
of the shells fired ricocheted off the water and landed near to the Earl of
Moray’s residence at Donibristle House in Dalgety Bay. Luckily, it didn’t cause much damage other
than ploughing up the lawn in front of the house. The enemy submarine was eventually sunk by a
gunner based out on Inchgarvie Island.
The
Battery is now in a state of disrepair and is badly vandalised and crumbling
away, much like most of the old coastal defences. However, around the old gun emplacements
there are some good views, through the trees, over the Forth. The sort of views that make you realise why
they built the Battery where they did.
I
left the Skulferatu that accompanied me on today’s walk in the hollow of a tree
growing out from one of the gun emplacements.
The
coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are –
Latitude 55.999295
Longitude
-3.351049
I used the following sources for information on Hound Point Battery -
Linlithgowshire Gazette –
Friday, September 18, 1914
Overland China Mail – No 2386,
October 31, 1914
Canmore – Forth Defences,
Inner, Hound Point Battery
Canmore
- Forth Defences, Inner, Hound Point Battery
Ancient Monuments UK
ancientmonuments.uk
- Hound Point Battery, City of Edinburgh
Article and
photographs are copyright of © Kevin Nosferatu, unless otherwise specified.
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