Showing posts with label tries.winter.drank. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tries.winter.drank. Show all posts

Tuesday 11 May 2021

Skulferatu #29 - Hound Point Battery, Dalmeny Estate, South Queensferry

 

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.

 

Hill view of the gun emplacement at Hound Point Battery in Dalmeny Estate, near South Queensferry. Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project
Hill view of gun emplacement at Hound Point Battery

 

The remains of the magazine building sitting amongst the trees at Hound Point Battery.  Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project
Remains of the magazine building


Remains of one of the gun emplacements at Hound Point Battery, Dalmeny Estate, near South Queensferry.  Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project
Gun emplacement – Hound Point Battery

 

Remains of one of the gun emplacements at Hound Point Battery, Dalmeny Estate, near South Queensferry.  Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project
Gun emplacement – Hound Point Battery

 

Remains of one of the gun emplacements at Hound Point Battery, Dalmeny Estate, near South Queensferry.  Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project
Gun emplacement – Hound Point Battery

 

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.

 

Skulferatu #29 at a gun emplacement in Hound Point Battery.  Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project
Skulferatu #29


Skulferatu #29 in tree hollow by one of the gun emplacements at Hound Point Battery.  Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project
Skulferatu #29 in tree hollow at Hound Point Battery

 

Map showing location of Skulferatu #29 by Hound Point Battery, Dalmeny Estate, South Queensferry
Map showing location of Skulferatu #29

 

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.