Approximate Location Map
Large Map »
This site is entirely user-supported. See how you can help.
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: 58.8521 / 58°51'7"N
Longitude: -2.862 / 2°51'43"W
OS Eastings: 350361
OS Northings: 996392
OS Grid: ND503963
Mapcode National: GBR M59B.FLZ
Mapcode Global: WH7CS.0RDS
Entry Name: Burray Ness, anti-aircraft battery (WW1), Burray
Scheduled Date: 17 December 2014
Source: Historic Environment Scotland
Source ID: SM13499
Schedule Class: Cultural
Category: 20th Century Military and Related: Anti-aircraft/barrage balloon site
Location: South Ronaldsay
County: Orkney Islands
Electoral Ward: East Mainland, South Ronaldsay and Burray
Traditional County: Orkney
The monument is one of two First World War anti-aircraft batteries defending the strategic harbour of Scapa Flow. The battery is visible as a series of concrete and stone features, comprising two concrete gun emplacements, a magazine, a possible searchlight emplacement and several concrete bases for associated accommodation buildings. It occupies a highly strategic location on the headland at Burray Ness, with extensive views to the S and E across the North Sea.
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 and use is expected to survive, as shown in red on the accompanying map. The scheduling specifically excludes the above-ground elements of the Ordnance Survey triangulation station to allow for its maintenance.
Source: Historic Environment Scotland
This monument is of national importance because it has an inherent potential to make a significant addition to our understanding of the past, in particular the aerial defences of Orkney and Scotland in the First World War. This is a very rare and well-preserved example of a World War I anti-aircraft battery, utilising a strong strategic location and highlighting the threat that enemy air power represented in the First World War. The monument offers considerable potential to study the relationship between the various elements of the site, and its relationship both with the other elements of the Scapa Flow defences and the wider defences in place around Orkney and beyond. The loss of the monument would significantly diminish our future ability to appreciate and understand the construction and use of aerial defences in Scotland during the First World War.
Source: Historic Environment Scotland
Bibliography
RCAHMS records the monument as ND59NW 4.
References
Barclay, G J 2013, The Built Heritage of the First World War in Scotland, Project report, Historic Scotland and RCAHMS.
Stell, G 2010, Orkney at War: Defending Scapa Flow - Volume 1: World War 1, The Orcadian, Kirkwall, 133-5.
Source: Historic Environment Scotland
Other nearby scheduled monuments