Description

This monument comprises a Second World War Z battery (multiple rocket launcher site) and decoy light anti-aircraft battery, and the core associated camp buildings. It is sited on the brow the hill at Golta, part of a heather-covered headland on which many First and Second World War military remains survive.

The Z battery comprises a regular grid of 64 rocket launchers and 128 magazines with the outlying remains of what are interpreted as four personnel shelters and a command post. The command post is now partially collapsed, but it was of panelled concrete slab construction with an entrance in a side wall. The ammunition shelters are constructed of inner corrugated sheeting with raked walls infilled with bags of concrete. This was a part of the curtain of defences protecting the Lyness naval base and a part of what was one of the most heavily defended areas in the UK during the Second World War.

To the E of the Z battery is a dummy light anti-aircraft battery with five circular emplacements.

The area to be scheduled is irregular on plan with maximum dimensions of 300m WSE to ESE by 280m transversely, to include the batteries and an area around in which evidence relating to their construction and use may survive, as marked in red on the accompanying map extract.

Source: Historic Environment Scotland

Statement of Scheduling

The monument is of national importance because it is the best preserved Z battery in the British Isles and a rare example of a surviving decoy battery. The network of First and Second War military remains in Orkney (primarily protecting the main fleet anchorage for the Royal Navy at Scapa Flow) is of national, indeed international significance, because of its importance in both World Wars and this site is an important component.

Source: Historic Environment Scotland

Sources

Bibliography

The monument is recorded by RCAHMS as ND39NE 2.

Source: Historic Environment Scotland