This site is entirely user-supported. See how you can help.
We don't have any photos of this monument yet. Why don't you be the first to send us one?
If Google Street View is available, the image is from the best available vantage point looking, if possible, towards the location of the monument. Where it is not available, the satellite view is shown instead.
Latitude: 60.3402 / 60°20'24"N
Longitude: -1.4754 / 1°28'31"W
OS Eastings: 429061
OS Northings: 1161915
OS Grid: HU290619
Mapcode National: GBR Q1QD.LPW
Mapcode Global: XHD29.5CVC
Entry Name: Swarbacks Head,gun emplacements
Scheduled Date: 17 February 1992
Source: Historic Environment Scotland
Source ID: SM5371
Schedule Class: Cultural
Category: 20th Century Military and Related: Battery
Location: Sandsting
County: Shetland Islands
Electoral Ward: Shetland West
Traditional County: Shetland
The monument consists of two guns with their emplacements and magazines, together with a command post, all dating to the First World War.
The two 6-inch naval guns on Swarbacks Head were landed from HMS Gibraltar in 1918 to protect the entrance to the deep water anchorage of Swarbacks Minn, which was used as a forward anchorage by cruiser squadrons. The guns survive in excellent condition, with their protective shields intact. They are set within individual circular concrete emplacements, each provided with two ready use lockers. Adjacent to each emplacement is a sunken concrete magazine. On the highest point of the headland, some 100m E of the guns, is a stone- built observation post, circular in plan, with a concrete roof.
The area to be scheduled is an irregular oval, with a maximum length of 250m ESE-WNW by a maximum of 60m N-S, to iclude the guns in their emplacements, their respective magazines and the observation post, as marked in red on the accompanying map.
Source: Historic Environment Scotland
The monument is of national importance as a very rare survival, a First World War coastal defence battery with its original guns in situ. The importance of the monument is enhanced by the good preservation of all main elements of the battery. Its location in this remote site, followed by its subsequent survival largely by virtue of its remoteness, serve to illustrate the contrast between the vital strategic role played by Shetland during both World Wars and its intervening and subsequent relative isolation.
Source: Historic Environment Scotland
Bibliography
RCAHMS records the monument as HU26SE 4.1.
Source: Historic Environment Scotland
Other nearby scheduled monuments