I see.

Discounting a range connection, it's hard to think of a use - we could be looking out of context now, and the reason for its being is no longer present.

The base is substantial, and was worth someone's time and effort to transport the material and build it there. The symmetry suggest something regular, and which the raised edge and studs located and held down. The studs are relatively few and light, and the raised section is relatively low, so whatever was placed there was neither particularly tall nor robust. A bit of wind on anything heavy/tall would have ripped clear of those fixings. A small lattice tower might have survived, but I'm really only mentioning this to dismiss it,

It would have been secure against casual attack by people, and would have protected any contents from someone without tools, or casual access.

Forestry workers' tool shed?

Water tank?

Last one is really a hint towards something heavy, but not tall, which would have justified the effort of making the concrete base, but providing fittings for something that could not be very tall.

A water tank seems unlikely as, if you look at getamap you will see it is on a shoulder of the hillside and not easily supplied by a burn.

The most puzzling thing to me is that the base extends so far out from the upstand where the fixing bolts are.  It appears to be about 6" thick and would have required a fair amount of material.

It is a mystery but someone might know.  I have asked on http://www.dunoon.tv .

I received this the other day by email:-

If we are thinking of the same place, there was a small shed with windows all round which was used for firewatching in the Fifties/early sixties. There was also a telephone line which led off, towards Innellan, I think, as this was part of Corlarach Forest.

If it is the same place, it is on a small hill which gave a good all round view of the surrounding forest while the trees were small,and could be seen from many parts of the town

Certainly sounds like like it all fits.

The concrete base would be substantial enough to survive the "traffic" of a body fidgeting and shuffling about all day, and not rot etc like wood, and those fixing look just right to hold down a one-man enclosure. The purpose fits the size too.

Is it worth a page?  It is certainly welll hidden if not entirely lost and I doubt if many people know of it's existence including the curator of Castlehouse Museum.

I've done a lot of hunting for the correct name, but nothing official seems to jump out of the woodwork.

The only definite seems to be the term for the occupant, who would have been a fire watcher (two words, no hyphenation), which probably reflects the age of the term, as I had been guided by firefighter, and fire-eater. Presumably their more common use led to their development.

http://www.for.gov.bc.ca/tasb/legsregs/archive/fpc/fpcaregs/ffirepre/ffpasr.htm#4

Now, is it a hut, or a post, or a lookout, or a... ?

I favour "post", as in "The position where someone (as a guard or sentry) stands or is assigned to stand", so the fire watcher can be provided with a hut at the post.

Can we approximate a marker position for the remains?

And lastly, a location name. Bishop's Glen seems better than Dunoon, even for the rifle ranges. Would this be better for the ranges, and applicable to this post?

Fire Watchers Post seems OK

It is shown on the OS getamap at NS 161763  Our Latlon Map is very fuzzy at that point and it does not show up.

Bishop's Glen is OK for the titles as long as Dunoon comes into the blurb.

Apparently there's a run on apostrophes at the shops today - Bishop's Glen Fire Watchers Post  

getamap's as rough as badger... you're looking at a possible error of around 200 metres, and that's on top of any error from not being able to identify the point of interest.

You can use our old pal RCAHMS and the Pastmap view to get near spot-on fixes for locations.

If you pan and zoom the map until you're close enough in to eyeball the point of interest in, then all you have to do is put the mouse pointer on the spot, then look down at the status bar of your browser - along the bottom of the screen - and you will see the grid reference of the point read out there continuously.

This is very useful for features that are not identified, or don't appear in the aerial view, but you know exactly where they are on the ground.

...the area of Bishop's Glen, west of Dunoon...

The peg for the Firewatchers hut is a bit out.  It should be here http://www.multimap.com/maps/?map=55.9444498,-4.9463869|18|8#map=55.94513,-4.9446|18|8&loc=GB:-0.1261:51.509:8||United%20Kingdom  assuming that this will take you to the same point.

Sorted (told you the getamap view was rubbish for that job ).

If you're quoting a Multimap link, because of the character combinations they use, it's best to wrap it inside url tags (9th from the left in the toolbar above):

[ur1=http://www.multimap.com/maps/?map=55.9444498,-4.9463869|18|8#map=55.94513,-4.9446|18|8&loc=GB:-0.1261:51.509:8||United%20Kingdom]hut location[/ur1]

Note that I've used ur1 rather than url above, to prevent the example being changed into a link.

Which shows as hut location in the message.

It's actually important for Multimap links, because the use of the | (pipe) to format their links means the open url is inactive after that is read, and if anyone clicks on the link, they get taken to the point at which you first opened the Multimap view, and not the one you eventually panned to and wanted to provide the link for.

I hope that made some sort of sense