There are new images of the battery and surrounding area provided by RCAHMS, and after looking at these and having another look at the online aerial views I'm beginning to wonder about what may be located there, and the information provided so far.

It's made me wonder about both the World War II battery info, and the postwar stuff too, motivated in part by the postwar conversion revelations we've unearthed.

I don't want to put too many preconceived ideas into willing heads before they take a look, but obviously have to drop sufficient hints as to where to look.

The new RCAHMS pics show what clearly seems to be the usual concrete engine room in the open, but the other building to the east is the interesting one, and begs closer inspection in all the available views.

Unfortunately, while an eyeball of the emplacements would be vastly informative, the woods they now lie in are doing the job they ware planted for, and other than believing the report that the emplacements are in there, there's no more info from that direction to help.

I've revised the page to reflect the thoughts too, in case it might attract a comment.

I am not entirely sure that the officers' accomodation was made into private housing.  There is a possibility that it is now the Quinetiq building.  

Oh great!

More rubbish from R...

I suspect what has happened is that the accommodation was used for housing after it became redundant, perhaps not private - we might never know the timeline - then the MoD took it over as the naval base was wound down, and it became the base for the range. Presumably this would have been controlled from the larger naval base to the north, and they just "rewired" the sea coils to Culwatty...

Nope, that's looking decidedly unsavoury - the Rosneath Base was way too far to the north, and the earlier info seems to have incorrectly placed the predecessor degaussing range there.

On reflection, the the more southerly location makes more sense all round, and would, I think, always have been the range site. I say this because it would want to have been clear of the traffic of the actual base, which would have had vessel arriving and departing all the time, fouling up test signals, and the vessels wouldn't have had the space needed, which the Culwatty Bay location would have given them in abundance, as would Barons Point it it proves to have been active in World War II. These two location also make more sense of references to wartime degaussing ranges at Portkil, as the Rosneath base is just a little to far away to have been called Portkil, even by wandered
English conscripts who would have considered Scotland virtually an overseas posting  

Well, there we are again, something else that needs fixing to get at the truth

I think you might be a bit dogmatic about the officers' accomodation being converted into the Quinetic HQ.  There is another set of buildings further north in the trees which equally might have been the Officers' accomodation but it is quite near the battery buildings.  Having loooked at the peoples map out of copyright map neither appear to have been there when the map was drawn up.  I was only drawing your attention to a possibility.

One thing that surprises me is that the trees have managed to swallow the gun emplacements so completely especially as they are assumed to be the large concrete type of construction.

This area definitely need a visit!

Dogmatic... never

I'll only ever allow solid statementn on traceable information (now, if that information's wrong, well... )

QinetiQ provide pinpoint mapping and GPS data files for all their sites, online, for anyone to view or download to their own GPS or even SatNav, so unless they don't know where their Greenisle , Rosneath, facility is located, or have got it wrong as an anti-terrorism measure, I'm afraid the position shown is correct, for QinetiQ, if not for the specific range building(s), read on...

What may be happening here is that the whole are has been taken over by QinetiQ - and was all the MoD's anyway, from when it acquired the land for the battery - and the actual range control building are indeed the two to the north. However, it's also fair to note that the Rosneath facility offers a lot more than the others, and may be using all the building for those different services, and provide offices and accommodation for its staff working there. As you say, the lot (battery, facility) begs a look, if it's accessible. More detailed OS mapping shows this to be Greenisle Cottage, but searches on this come up with nil, at Rosneath anyway.

The trees are now some 50 years old, so I'd have to say there's little surprise they have completely obscured the emplacements, irritating as it is, since they will have been placed and the variety then chosen would have been selected to grow and cover the site quickly, otherwise they'd have been pointless. This is different from places we've encountered where the forest growth is unintended and natural.

Engage ramble mode:
I was kind of hinting that there may be some mis-information about the batteries. Without being able to see them, maybe the emplacements are conversions. This thought just arose when I was looking at the images and older mapping. There's nothing at all at the wartime location, not even an indication of buildings. The spot, on more detailed mapping, is identified as High Barracks, so might have been a wartime camp, and the battery was to the east.

I also wonder about this because the emplacements were intended to be hidden by trees, which would still have interfered with radar aiming, which we can assume that the postwar batteries mounted on/near the guns. At Rosneath it is clear that the engine/radar/command buildings are sited away from the guns, as per a conversion.

It all makes me wonder.
Cancel ramble mode:

I happened to approach the view of the emplacements hidden in the woods from a different direction tonight, and noticed that there was an odd little wood to the northwest of the emplacements.

You can't miss it, it's almost a northwest mirror image location compared to those buildings to the southeast.

There's clearly a track leading directly into that small wooded area, and it's quite prominent. It appears to be more important than the route to the north and the big house and formal gardens visible from the air.

I wonder if there is a building or buildings in there that were missed by the survey? And are they connected to the battery?

FYI

I just noticed, on large scale OS map, that the cottages are named...

The single one to the south, marked by QuinetiQ, and larger than the others, is Greenisle Cottage, of the two to the north, the one to the west is Culwatty Cottage, and the one to the east is Appin Cottage. Not significant, just interesting.

Back again!

I just found that a pic of the two buildings exists, not very detailed, but enough to identify the engine and presumably the radar room.

The aerial view still looks odd, as if the engine room perhaps had an extension, as it appears to be much longer in east-west direction than north-south, and the ones you've photographed so far (on other sites) are much closer to being square than such an extended rectangle.

Maybe it's just an illusion in the pic.

I've updated the battery page anyway.

Re the other small wood.  yes I noted it the other day and have it in mind as a target when I get time to go there again.

Have you also noted that at the north end of the field there is another small wood with a small building in it?  Unfortunately the Bird's Eye does not go that far.

I can't see where you mean - can you try and zero me in on the spot you're looking at?

Starting from where I see is the track to the west of Greensile cottage, where the engine room is, if I go north from there then I come to the wood grown to hide the the four emplacements. If I cintinue north from there,  I soon pass the little "mystery" wood a short way to the west, and if I carry on to the north I arrive at the caravan site. There's only the Greenisland Plantation that runs the length of the shore to the east.

Am I looking in the wrong place for this other small wood, because I only see two: the larger one with the emplacements hidden within, and the tiny none just northwest of that?

One tree!!!

No wonder I couldn't spot another "small wood".

To be fair to my bad observation, I was actually depending on some large scale OS mapping, since you'd mentioned that the Bird's Eye view ran out at the important place, and guess what... neither the tree, path, or building appear on it, so no help there.

Yep, it would indeed be interesting to discover if that is one of "our" concrete type buildings.

And, yes, well spotted. I never thought to look around, being too busy trying to squeeze something out of the emplacement woods, but with no joy.

Site visit carried out today.  The top wood contains a cast iron watertank probaly the supply for the caravan site, the middle wood seems to have beeen the farm dump judging by the bits of bike and bucket handles etc. poking out of the soil.  No sign on any defence activity that I could discover.

The buildings and the bottom wood were interesting, photos to follow tomorrow.  Suffice to say at this juncture that the contents of the wood were not what I/we expected.

Anticipation mode engaged.

Guess I will be disappointed, having assumed that being buried in the woods (assuming RCAHMS/Guy record is accurate) would have meant that the emplacements might have been substantially original, if lost and overgrown in the woods.

You'll need to be clear about which wood is which, just in case, or I might get lost again

I don't think you will be disappointed!

The western building is a standard computer building as in all the known post war batteries but this is almost intact and contains details not present in others.  It seems that the right hand small annexe was for an air blower judging by the steel duct still in situ.

The East range is two conjoined buildings.  There are no pits outside it as appeared on some aerial pics, just a few trees.  The long building has 2 dooors, one near each end and is the same as the one at Pattiston.  The other is a typical postwar engine house but with extra details.

Given the position of the site it has not been subjected to vandalism of any sort as far as I could see although it has been re-used by the farmer.

I received a lovely belt from the electric fence when passing underneath it and involuntarily reacted the same way as animals do when shocked by the fences.

The 4 emplacements are in the southern area of woodland. I think they are type S but are buried!  Given the greatly overgrown nature of the wood photography was difficult to say the least but it does explain why they cannot be seen on any of the aerial pics.  Only emplacement 1 , the western one, seemed to have the full circle of the gun pit.  The building entrances and the holdfast areas have been filled with earth and rubble probably as a safety measure given the proximity of the caravan site.  The area also contains a number of bulldozed tree stumps and some concrete debris some of which is quite substantial.  The emplacements are quite clearly full of water and so cannot be entered despit there being some crawl spaces where the infill has washed down to the interior.

http::/picasaweb.google.co.uk/TheFoxSecS/RosneathBattery     enjoy!