# RAF Peterhead (Longside) - Oct 08. Filling in the gaps.



## Seahorse (Oct 28, 2008)

Decided to pop along and get some pics of my own, to supplement Bax's thread. Started off at the often forgotten site on the south side of the road. It would appear to hold more appeal for enthusiasts of scrap farming machinery. But fairly interesting anyhow.


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## Neosea (Oct 28, 2008)

Gaps filled in nicely


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## Foxylady (Oct 28, 2008)

Seahorse said:


> It would appear to hold more appeal for enthusiasts of scrap farming machinery.



Ooh, two for the price of one! Great to see the buildings...and love the tractor.


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## Bryag (Oct 28, 2008)

Did the bird cannon get you?


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## Seahorse (Oct 28, 2008)

Then across the road to the main site. Apologies if some of these duplicate Bax's pics.

Obviously too new to have been part of the original site, but this intrigued be anyhow.









Concrete filled drum, used as a counterweight on the gate barrier.





Not sure what this was, but note the cable routing down to a sub surface channel.













Original broken glass to prevent climbing over the wall.


























Old milk bottle. But still fairly recent.





Shelters

















Parachute shed????


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## Seahorse (Oct 28, 2008)

Bryag said:


> Did the bird cannon get you?



HAHA. No, I didn't come across that. Sorting out some more to upload though. Did you spot the casualty of war?

You'll see what I mean in a mo.


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## Bryag (Oct 28, 2008)

Not a parachute shed, more like a home for a Green Goddess. That building, my friend, is the fire station- extant on pretty much all of the airfields I have visited.

It was only half full of hay on our visit


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## Seahorse (Oct 28, 2008)

Just a few more to go.

I was tempted to crack the hatch and see what the rushing water was. Maybe later.









Looking sheepish.





Ranges. Did someone ask about bullet holes? OK then.





MEDIC!!!!!





Riddled.





Something smells ripe. Is it in here?





Casualty of War. Caught in the crossfire?





Range is still in use. Grass cut, target pully system all working.

















Sorry for the amount of pics.  Thanks for persevering.


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## MD (Oct 28, 2008)

nice one 
did you find any old bullets on the floor? used ones!


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## Bryag (Oct 28, 2008)

Pretty much what Bax__ and I did back in May. Still lots to see, but the Stanton shelters were rather soggy and shitey

Here is the half full fire station, note the plaster and paint


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## Seahorse (Oct 28, 2008)

Yup, I had hoped to find a bit more, hence quizzing one of the farmers. But this is just about it he says, apart from the shelters over by the memorial, and the shower block.

I anticipated flooded/shitey shelters, so brought my wellies. Heck, I ALWAYS have my wellies, since I'm usually doing this stuff after I've been to see to my horse. 

I'm sure there was loads more to see when I was a kid, but maybe that's in the same class of memory as the sun always shining, and my bike never getting a puncture. 

Cheers for the update on the fire engine shed. Always learning.


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## Seahorse (Oct 28, 2008)

mattdonut said:


> nice one
> did you find any old bullets on the floor? used ones!



I'm sure several decades of pikeys and schoolboys will have made sure there's very little left.

Probably quite a few in the sandbank of the range that's still in use though. 

Actually, I wonder who uses it? Can't be a civilian gun club I wouldn't have thought, since hand guns are now outlawed. And you can't really bang off full bore on a 30 metre range. That gas canister looked fairly modern, and the holes are of various calibres. Hmm. How to find out.


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## zimbob (Oct 28, 2008)

Seahorse said:


> Actually, I wonder who uses it? Can't be a civilian gun club I wouldn't have thought, since hand guns are now outlawed. And you can't really bang off full bore on a 30 metre range. That gas canister looked fairly modern, and the holes are of various calibres. Hmm. How to find out.



Probably a local gun club 

I've shot at my local one often enough,and the longest range usually in use is 25 metres, they use all sorts, .303s, .22s assorted rifles, and more bizarre handguns than you can imagine! I've shot a black-powder Colt .44 revolver, and one fella has a .357 magnum (think Dirty Harry) which is legal as it has a stock attached


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## Seahorse (Oct 28, 2008)

I can't see the point of a rifle at that range. You just can't miss! Well, aye, .22. But certainly not full bore.

Loved .303's. I remember the days when we could all just all jump onto the bus up to Black Dog ranges with our Lee Enfields stuffed in our jackets on the luggage racks. 

Had a fun day once with an assortment of captured IRA weaponry. Including a home made SMG. The armourer nicknamed it Bob Marley, cos it kept jammin'.


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## Bryag (Oct 28, 2008)

This picture is a closeup of the Aircraft firing butt (which we now know was an enclosed range) the severe damage to the brickwork suggests quite a high calibre and many rounds. In the centre of the picture you will see a slug in the wall. Bax__ and I found spent shells as well as digging a slug out of the firing butt, at RAF Banff earlier the same day (May, 2008)


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## Seahorse (Oct 29, 2008)

Just reading the memories of one Bill McRae, who was stationed at Peterhead. (http://members.lycos.co.uk/esar/bmmem1.html)

It seems that Spitfires were equipped at one time with a miniature crowbar in the cockpit. Coincidence? Could the one in this pic have originally come from a Spitfire?????


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## krela (Oct 29, 2008)

Fire Tender Shed... not fire station 

The building with the glass all around it is a Mech & Eng plinth for electricity distribution.

Looks like a great site and some nice photos


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## Seahorse (Oct 29, 2008)

krela said:


> The building with the glass all around it is a Mech & Eng plinth for electricity distribution.



That makes sense. There's another one over by the range, complete with plinths. The one shown has no plinths at all.


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## krela (Oct 29, 2008)

Seahorse said:


> That makes sense. There's another one over by the range, complete with plinths. The one shown has no plinths at all.



It may just have been a switching station rather than a transformer plinth. They're not all identical, I guess it depends on needs and requirements.


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## Seahorse (Oct 29, 2008)

It's only a few feet away from the building with the cable routing still in place, so I'm guessing that one will have been electrical too.

Oh. While I'm remembering, map linky.

ANd tractor graveyard linky.


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## Bryag (Oct 29, 2008)

krela said:


> Fire Tender Shed... not fire station



I stand corrected, said the man in the orthepaedic shoes


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## krela (Oct 29, 2008)

Bryag said:


> I stand corrected, said the man in the orthepaedic shoes



I'm such a WW2 geek heh


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## Bryag (Oct 29, 2008)

And no bad thing


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## Seahorse (Oct 29, 2008)

krela said:


> Fire Tender Shed... not fire station



HAHA. Bryag called it a fire station in his Banff thread too. 

You say tomato, I say, err... tomato. (Doesn't quite come across the same when you write it. )


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## Seahorse (Feb 26, 2010)

Time to resurrect this thread methinks. I was bored in June last year and had another wee wander around the south west corner over by the disperal areas. Here's the results.

Let's start off with a pillbox. For Cptpies' benefit, I'll confirm this one from the blurb thusly...



> *Cantilevered Pillbox*
> 
> Site type PILLBOX (20TH CENTURY)
> Canmore ID 267783
> ...



















Dispersal and Stanton shelters.




















And an unidentified building. I thought ablutions. But it's miles away from anywhere except the dispersals. Hmm. Have a look and see what you think.




















This place was inhabited by a "gentleman of the road" when I was a lad.










I'll be nipping back at some point to record all the pillboxes. I have a soft spot for this design for some reason.


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## the_historian (Feb 26, 2010)

Good pics, SH. 
If that building's close to dispersal, it's probably a crew standby room. There's a similar one at Macmerry.


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## fluffy5518 (Feb 26, 2010)

Is it not an aircrew accommodation block ? It looks very similar to the buildings at Kings Cliffe dispersal pens !!!


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## Seahorse (Feb 26, 2010)

Not entirely sure how that would work. I guess you could squeeze bunks in along one wall though. I'll need to go back and check dimensions. But from memory, you'd need to be very short if they were bunks.

There would certainly be no room for chairs and the like.

Does Macmerry have ventilation suspended under the ceiling?

I'll pop along tomorrow for a better look.


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## HypoBoy (Feb 26, 2010)

Seahorse said:


>



That may be listed as an FC construction box, but it's very different in construction to all the "proper" East Anglian FC ones I've seen. 






The walls on FCs normally have a concrete ring capping around the top of the wall, even on ones with a bricked up embrasure. I've never seen a deep embrasure like the one on yours before. The roof design's also pretty different. FCs normally have a prefab roof with a concrete cap, where yours looks almost like it's been rendered over bricks in situ? It's really interesting to see though - almost as though someone from down south sent a photo of theirs and they built one how they thought it ought to look 

Fluffy's right about the dispersal building though. It's identical to the one at Kings Cliffe. I'm pretty sure that one's recorded as an aircrew block*

* Edit: It's actually listed as "Sleeping shelter", so presumably a rest room for standby air crew. Quite why they didn't just use the Stanton shelters instead is a bit puzzling. Think I'd want to if I was there facing the risk of air raids!


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## the_historian (Feb 27, 2010)

Seahorse said:


> Does Macmerry have ventilation suspended under the ceiling?




Can't remember, but that gives me an excuse to get over there again...


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## Seahorse (Feb 27, 2010)

HypoBoy said:


> That may be listed as an FC construction box, but it's very different in construction to all the "proper" East Anglian FC ones I've seen.
> 
> The walls on FCs normally have a concrete ring capping around the top of the wall, even on ones with a bricked up embrasure. I've never seen a deep embrasure like the one on yours before. The roof design's also pretty different. FCs normally have a prefab roof with a concrete cap, where yours looks almost like it's been rendered over bricks in situ? It's really interesting to see though - almost as though someone from down south sent a photo of theirs and they built one how they thought it ought to look
> 
> ...



I think the ones at Peterhead are unique. Certainly, I've never seen the like anywhere else. There isn't exactly an all round field of fire from these things, so presumably they were relying on each one covering the others. Spread a bit far apart for that though.


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## cptpies (Feb 27, 2010)

There are a number of FC pillboxes that have had their embrasures partially bricked up to create single or multiple embrasures. You can't blame the people on site wanting to do that, they are really only good for overhead cover otherwise


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