Lossiemouth WWII Emergency Coastal Battery

I visited here last month this is a WWII Emergency Coastal Battery at Innes Links between Lossiemouth and Kingston.... http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=d&hl=en&geocode=&saddr=57.693965,-3.208523&daddr=&mra=mi&mrsp=0&sz=15&sll=57.694034,-3.20745&sspn=0.011055,0.028925&ie=UTF8&t=h&z=15

The Coastal Battery was built in 1941 and consisted of 2 x 6" Mark XI gun emplacements, 2 x Searchlight Emplacements, 1 x Observation Post, 3 x Generator Buildings, 1 x Air Raid Shelter?, 1 x Ammunition Store, 1 x Other Building disguised as a house and probably 4 Nissen Huts.

The guns had been removed from ships from WWI and stored for future use. The 227 Coastal Battery, 501 Coast Regiment Royal Artillery Manned the facility. In 1942 The home Gaurd took over and in June 42 the 1st Moray Battalion Home Guard formed 'E'Company under command of Capt W A Mustard to man the Battery. In April 1945 the unit was stood down and put on a care and maintenance basis and was removed later in the year. (Info from World War II in Moray by Bill Bartlam and Ian Keillar).

Anyway here's the photo's.....

Pill box at the road leading to the coastal battery


Looking from inside a Pillbox in the Anti tank line


Searchlight Emplacement


Generator House complete with camouflage paint


One of the Main Gun Emplacements


Both Main Emplacements


Not sure what this was? It sits forward of the anti tank line towards the beach


Observation Post (nearest) and Searchlight Emplacement further along the beach


Observation Post


Mount inside Observation Post is this for a Range finder?


2nd Generator House, this looked bigger than the other two, look at the tree growing on the roof


Inside the Generator house, everything has been stripped bar the concrete bases and the paint


Looking seaward from behind one of the Searchlight Emplacements


Both Main Gun Emplacements had these on the outward sides of the empacements, would they have been for machine guns or temporary search lights prior to the search light emplacements being built? The wall was definitely an after thought.


Mount for main 6" Gun


View from Main Gun Emplacement out over the Moray Firth


Building disguised as a house, would this have been the command post?


Interior of building that disguised as a house, there is a seperate area accessed only from outside.


Air Raid Shelter?


Ammunition Store?


Inside Store




Cement Bases for Nissen huts maybe?




I believe this is the same type of gun although I think there may have been more protection around them than in this photo. This photo is taken of a gun preserved in Australia..



Andy

That's a cool find. Your map link is not working, it takes us to the sea.

Link fixed, there is not much to see, most of the buildings are in the trees only the house can be seen in the clearing.

What an exciting site! I've never seen one so extensive nor so well preserved as this one before. The Coastal Artillery Searchlight emplacement is especially interesting to me as we have one on the beach front of my town and is of the same design...I believe there aren't many around like this. Ace report.

Bax__ said:

Not sure what this was? It sits forward of the anti tank line towards the beach

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We have similar bits of concrete on the beach which can be seen when the tide's particularly low. I'm pretty sure they're part of beach defences. Metal rods would have had wire wound around them to halt landings.

Foxylady said:

Metal rods would have had wire wound around them to halt landings.

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Not the small ones as shown in your pic, but larger ones with coils of wire...sorry, I didn't explain myself very well!

Foxylady,

Thanks for that but it seems to be the only one and the Rods are threaded as if something was bolted down on top of the concrete base. (I guess I didn't explain that very well!)

WOW! There's so much to see here! Good report!

Bax__ said:

Foxylady,

Thanks for that but it seems to be the only one and the Rods are threaded as if something was bolted down on top of the concrete base. (I guess I didn't explain that very well!)

Click to expand...

Actually, looking at it again I see what you mean, as there's a square base. Ooh, that's odd. That'd be interesting to find out.

sqwasher said:

WOW! There's so much to see here! Good report!

Click to expand...

Sqwasher,

Thanks for that, there was a guy on 28dl says I missed some parts further along the coast including a locked underground bunker. I'll be going back in the next few weeks to ferret around the area.

Andy