Description

The monument is a late 19th-century coastal battery. It comprises two roofed rectangular stone-built huts connected by a curving earth bank, which protects two gun emplacement platforms. The huts are built of coursed and finely dressed mortared masonry and roofed with stone slabs, partially covered with turf. The southern hut measures approximately 3.1m by 2.3m and is aligned WNW-ESE. On the W (landward) side is a high lintelled doorway measuring 0.7m wide and 2m high. The interior is sealed with a floor of tightly interlocking stone slabs and the walls are dressed with mortar. The northern hut lies roughly 20m to the NNE. It measures 5.6m by 2.7m and is aligned NW-SE. The entrance is on the NW and measures 0.6m wide by 1.85m high. The interior has a fitted stone-slab floor and smooth walls. The roof is constructed of wooden beams, rafters and cladding, rather than stone slabs. There are horizontal wooden lathes built into each of the four walls. Connecting the two huts on the seaward side is a curving grass-covered earth bank, now measuring up to 8m in width and standing up to 1m high, but reportedly as high as the hut roofs originally. Behind this and between the huts are the levelled platforms of two gun emplacements. The battery is situated on the SE coast of Rousay at about 5m above sea level, overlooking Wyre Sound and Rousay Sound.

The scheduled area is irregular on plan to include the remains described above and an area around them within which evidence relating to the monument's construction, use and abandonment is expected to survive, as shown in red on the accompanying map.

Source: Historic Environment Scotland

Statement of Scheduling

The monument is of national importance as a rare survival of a 19th-century fortification, with the potential to provide important information about the design, layout and function of 19th-century defences. It offers an insight into the history of defence and the volunteer forces in Orkney and Scotland during the later 19th century - a time when there was a risk of invasion from France. The huts in particular survive in excellent condition, retaining many original features including roof slates, internal wooden fittings and mortared interior walls. This fine and unusual example of a 19th-century coastal battery built for the Orkney Artillery Volunteer Force is one of the best preserved examples of its class. The site is also significant for its strong associations with the infamous laird of Rousay, Lieutenant-General Frederick William Traill-Burroughs, who played a significant part in the suppression of the Indian mutiny in 1857-8 and, after his retirement from the army, became commander of the Orkney Volunteers. The loss of this monument would diminish our ability to understand the varied forms of coastal defence in the 19th century and the role of volunteer forces in Orkney and further afield.

Source: Historic Environment Scotland

Sources

Bibliography

RCAHMS records the monument as HY42NW 77.

References

Grierson J M 1909, Records of the Scottish Volunteer Force 1859-1908, Edinburgh.

[Transcript available ]

Lynn, D 2009, 'Point of Avelshay, Orkney (Rousay and Egilsay parish), field visit', Discovery Excav Scot, new vol 1, 133-134.

Thompson, W P L 2000 (reprint), The Little General and the Rousay Crofters: crisis and conflict on an Orkney estate, Edinburgh: John Donald, 88.

Source: Historic Environment Scotland