Orcadian landscapes

Whilst waiting for the ferry to leave I raised my head to take far shots of the Houton Head Battery and of the more easily distinguished engine room, both on the skyline above Howth. Like matchsticks for sleepy eyes the lower window of facing crow-stepped Howth has what seems to be its lintel propped up by two long battens.The first western isles we pass arethe Calf of Cava with its lighthouse and the elongated Cava with its plethora of abandoned buildings drawing the eyes, here a farm or steading there a wartime reminder or less identifiable structure awaiting their recorder. This being Orkney attention to coastlines picks up WWII traces everywhere one looks, some in groups small and large, others in splendid isolation (or at least that is how they now appear). Coming round to Lyness I see the nearer of the two Martello towers along with what I take to be anti-submarine netting. Alongside the dock is some strange modern vessel in bold green and yellow. The name is Well or Wello. It has a really pronounced list but I am not sure whether this is the result of an accident or by design - in these times of renewables you can take nothing for granted. After a brief look at the exhibits in front of Lyness museum whilst we re-grouped we started off on our walk as no-one had turned up to join us. Where the road leaves the shore over near the blue gantry in the sea is a very large concrete block with various bits of equipment like vertical knobbed barrel-shaped pipes and frameworks (one marked x Vent x/x) which look to have started off life coated with bright white paint. This must have been part of the wartime oil terminal and the grids of vertical rods exposed all over means it must have looked even busier once. Heading up and close to the road are long corrugated buildings with gently curved roofs parallel to it then more of the same whose ends face the road. Turns out to be two multi-roofed wartime repair sheds. Next to the second is a low building in bright yellow which started off life as a NAAFI and recreation buiding before finding use as a repair shop. Near a disused concrete pier are several structures built into earth banks and several likely air raid shelters. But they all look like shelters to me, the former simply turfed over Nissen huts ! Starting up the hill is what had at one time been a torpedo depot (1941 Admiralty plan, like the NAAFI). There's a barbed wire fence, then two low flanking walls seperated by a large gap. At first it seems the depot is a tee with a very long top but those walls are what is left of two buildings because I can just make out more walls on my photo. Up on a bank or partly sunk behind a wall at the back are what the track led to, a building with two wide symmetrically placed doors which is flanked by two slightly taller towers that appear to be slightly tapered cuboids. And behind is a protective earth bund. Scattered about outside of the enclosure are various other buildings, mostly brickwork (distinguishing them from some not far from the bottom of the Wee Fea plantation that are of breeze block and concrete). One is more of a building complex, like a smaller version of the signal station up on Wee Fea even down to the small rectangular structure on the roof. Either it is still in use or ( suspect) it still contains something dangerous, because the vertical roller door on the once whitewashed front is painted red with large black chevrons. I also see a large white building with all windows blocked out. The roof is asbestos with a steep pitch. Off in the distance is a drawn out collection of long buildings with the same kind of roof, maybe some kind of barracks as per Echnaloch but on a bigger scale. In front of a slightly taller one at the RH end is a small building complex. Elsewhere another complex runs up a low slope, divided into two sections (so that they appear two abutting buildings) with a big ?chimney on one side and a small building on the other. On my return this way on the other side of the road I saw a long flat-roofed building decked in cream and presently a pub it seems. Is this Hoy Lodge, the engine room ('power station') for the Lyness Base that became a Co-op store ? Coming to the junction of the B9047 and the B9048 we went across to the broad metalled track that goes past a linear plantation up to Wee Fea. All left of the road direction is NMRS record number ND49SE 2, to the right ND49SE 4 the underground oil tanks etcetera. It is a lovely walk even going uphill, birds calling from the light wood on one side and gorgeous views on the other, About two-thirds of the way up the wood there is a clearing with two ruinous brick built WWII buildings. That to the right is thought to have held compartments, but from here all I see is a big square hole at ground level with a concrete lintel. The left hand building is more aesthetically pleasing. And not just because more survives - two complete side walls and and a complete gable end. Topped by concrete lintels are numerous tall narrow slots in the side walls and a narrow door in the gable end. Many of the slots are now are part-filled with rubble. The record mentions a water tank east of them but not another tank PASTMAP shows close to the bend in the road, though it figures in the 'site type'). Continuing past these buildings I spot an arrangement of low parallel walls of brick with tapered concrete tops. My thoughts run to stalls, and it is only long after my visit that I identify these as the remains of filter beds. Where the track parts going to the left brings you to the main event, the satisfyingly impressive bulk of H.M.S. Proserpine. This signalling station functioned from 1943 as Naval Command's main Base HQ and Communications Centre for Scapa Flow - the brick structure at the centre of its roof still has the signalling bridge and signal lamp mountings. Though described as two-storeyed, because the lower portions back into the hillside I believe it is technically a storey-and-a-half. Still deliciously overpowering I found. By the time I reached it the other members of the Blide party were all there, and some had been inside even though the interior is said to be in a parlous state. So I set off to circumnavigate the outsides. The oval holes in the walls resembling Egyptian cartouches are simply noted as a combination of window and ventilator. However, given the number of ordinary windows there are I feel that they have a more particular purpose, and probably a specific name went with that function. Further brick structures abut the walls at ground level. Some create a deep channel around the outside like that about the combined control tower and operations/communications block at H.M.S. Tern. More brickwork lines rectangular holes the size of (say) manholes mostly away from the main body of the building, both semi-subterranean and sunken, some with equipment still inside. I suspect that the whole site is of brick, some covered in concrete cladding, but whether the exposed brick had been designed to be so or is through later factors I am not sure. Continuing along the track fragments of concrete foundations are from accomodation huts and possibly another water tank. On the hillside above there appears to have been a quarry, giving the appearance of three stone-dotted low mounds on the skyline. Coming to a recent picnic area we had a sit down and mulled over what we had seen. From here we looked down towards where the Burn of Ore enters its bay. The circular walk continued somewhere thataway. But not only is the way forward less positively marked it also struck a few that to finish the job could well require more time than we had before our appointment with the cafe for our Reach Out. So we retraced our steps to the junction where the military seperates out from the industrial. By the far shoulder is a mound that is probably artificial, on which there is a long narrow triangular concrete block. Whether the edge of something partly buried or some hollow trough I don't know, just as I don't know which complex it belongs to. From here you can see a large level platform of triangular section cast up from the hillside, sides high enough for bushes to seem small, which is part of the workings for the underground tank complex. On top are a few concrete foundations and a small concrete pit with a recess on top. Opposite is the entrance to the underground oil tanks with a bonnie vent up on the left of the funnel-shaped banks resembling a tall beehive or a weather station. There is a large concrete foundation leading you in between a false gateway complete with monument pillars. Before coming to the gateway there is a rough square foundation (?conglomerate) topped by a fine thin concrete plinth. By the time I arrived most of the rest were already on their way back out, so I gave it a miss and instead invested time in the external filter bed nearby, which is rectangular and set into the hillside end on. Either side of the 'entrance' are two large concrete squares with paired valves in the back walls. Behind these the space is divided into narrow slots running back, which will be the filter beds themselves. On top of the concrete the sides have fine mesh fences, the front and back and the 'entrance' rear are mounded by sets of metal paling fences. These are picked out in black and metallic blue (annealing??) and may post-date the war as devices to stop folk falling in. Beside the road in front of this structure is a thick concrete wall holding back a bank - there must be something below ground as there is an iron pipe protruding from the front at boths sides. To the right a set of stone steps lead up to a rectangular pit holding the sluice mechanism. Like a deep squre manhole close to, the top is missing. Off down the road back into Lyness, reaching the outskirts on our left I made out the war cemetery (NMRS record ND39SW 33). In the vicinity are two long brick buildings with many concrete lintelled window openings and corrugated asbestos roofs missing most of their ridge covers/tiles. I wonder if these were accomodation huts. They don't show as a seperate record mark on CANMAP and I can't see them under any other records. Not for lack of trying. In Lyness there is a long two storey building with a tiled roof and a long wall running from one side with an entrance into some kind of courtyard.For once this relic isn't wartime. It had been Haybrake Granary (ND39SW 104). The building resembles an ordinary stone-built dwelling writ large rather than a mansion house. The granary entrance in the LH side evidently one had a building before it, as at magnification I see a horizontal line of holes for floor beams with a thin slab or slabs above them. So a phantom building as seen at Binscarth Farm. Next we were back at the shore of Ore Bay. There are several piers. ND39SW 17 has a tall hand crane at the far end, all rusted now. Looking along it there are several large wartime buildings opposite. This pier survives complete, whereas ND39SW 133 has only a few supports left. Whether by accident or design this drifter repair slipway points straight at one of the Martello towers. By this end are the remains of a construction of wood held together by bolted on metal plates. I keep hearing this strange sound, which I'd also heard going up. Eventually I traced it to the exposed end of yet another wartime pier. There are two tysties, black guillemot, by a pipe just under the top. Before I can get a pic including the bird sat in the pipe end itself that bird disappears up the pipe somewhere - evidently the sound came from a hungry chick calling. We made our way back to the museum. Left of the forecourt had large yellow patches of low flowers and also some tall daisies. Saw a carder bee on a trefoil flower. Time for our Reach Out appointment. While waiting had a look inside the Pumpwell Cafe. The counter is built to look like a child's idea of a boat, complete with portholes, very cutesie. Over the kitchen art is folk art - a sign saying queue here, three forces personnel, a vertical NAAFI sign. There is more such on the walls and ceiling, including an aerial dogfight with many planes in flames. We sat and had some lovely cakes but again no-one came. So eventually we left the cafe for a wander around the rest of the building. The museum is in the old pumping station, the silver and black pumps lined up outside the cafe door like tinned Nissen huts. This section of the building is more you regular museum, with 'proper' exhibits like an azimuth compass an a capstan. The rest of the building is a riot of colour by comparison, engines and other machines in green and blue with red instrumentation and panels. Though there is the small matter of a torpedo in virtually pristine condition. Leaving and turning left I follow a short length of wartime railtrack. There is a large lansdcaped pond with a peedie islet and twa ducks. I suspect this is thoroughly modern - I would have said a filled in quarry if it wasn't for sections of low concrete wall at the back. Small ripples cross the pool under a light breeze. On the surface are mats of large green and bronze leaves slightly reminiscent of lanceolate lily pads. There were many variations on the Nissen hut, almost all with their own names, but at the other end of the pond is the only real contender for 'species' status. This larger 'version', a Romney hut, is where the Otterbank boat was beng restored at the time (a restoration now complete). It is thought to have been a stores and the windows sit on concrete plinths (the sliding door is a recent addition). At the other side are the light grey goods carriages and wagons that used the track. Continuing on I came to a high bank. Called an earth bund, it marked the northern boundary of the Fleet Repair Base. Within it I saw some air raid shelters, well once I moved the grass I did - record number ND39SW 130, prefabs of concrete bolted together at the top (similar to the Anderson shelter ND39SW131 just behind the pumping station, though that has a square front to the thing).Looking over the way I saw more buildings that were part of the base. ND39SW 134 comprises workshops, a foundry and a joinery. Mostly brickwork apart from some upper walls of corrugated material. Returned to see what else lay around the pumping station. Along the way had a look at a concrete cylinder similar to an entranceless pillarbox, in a grassy bit near the Romney hut - in the top half are vertical pairs of small holes, perhaps 4 sets. Looks as if a top has been knocked off as this a little ragged. Went around the back of the museum to marvel at the intricate arrangement of grey pipes down the further side, plenty up the banks and some of the pipes going down a long trough to the station. Here a rusty pipe goes up and across to the wall, behind which an outsize metal cylinder with a vent at the top is mounted by 'fins' onto a brick structure - a chimney of some kind obviously. Above a gun points seaward. Though there is only one oil tank here now at the terminal's peak there were sixteen from the initial four in 1917. I didn't even think about coming in, so became slightly disheartened when others came back from inside and told me it is where larger exhibits, such as a plane, are now housed. A sign points the way to an air-raid shelter. Must be something special as it requires a fair walk for most people. Even though a notice said it was shut at that time it still gave me an excuse to get out in the open and see what views might be had on leaving the terminal behind. Either side of this track are further banks. Before the one on my left there is a low five-sided brick wall inside which is a something, a concrete top with a loose rusty plate between two short rusty vertical girders/stanchions, one with a steel chain attached. A little further along, on my right beside a bank, is a three sided structure with sloping sides, of brick with deep concrete capping. Two very intriguing structures exemplifying the oft-noted inabilty of the War Department to create anything purely utilitarian. Had to tear myself from further explorations as I reached the turn for the advertised shelter. Just in time to meet up with the rest of the Orkney Blide Trust party. A last observation. Finally coming back into Houton I notice a final relict or two in the greened angle between the pier road and that most vehicles come down. Chimaera of brick and cladding, the brickwork of each a shadow of another building, self-evidently wartime (both World Wars ??). Except they had pitched roofs, one of which has been sliced off to make the roof level whilst the other is built level up above the peak.

Labels: Cava, Fleet Repair Base, Haybrake Granary, HMS Proserpine, Houton Head, Lyness, Martello Tower, N.A.A.F.I., Ore Bay, Pumpwell Cafe, signalling bridge, Torpedo Depot, Wee Fea