I've just released the Sutors of Cromarty page on the Main Site, after deciding (initially at least) to lump all the relevant location on North Sutor and South Sutor on to the one page, although each will have its own section, and maybe even page, later.

Like many of our subjects, this is another that just grew and grew as the initial info - the South Sutor Battery - was delved into.

All the points have been identified, marked, and pics linked where available, but the words and story are far from complete, and will follow later.

The point that raises itself for discussion is the actual location and identification of North and South Sutor. While conducting the initial investigation of the area, all seemed simple. There's a big firth, with a big cliff to the north, and another big cliff to the south - North and South Sutor. Easy.

This seemed to be case until the pics arrived, and many were captioned with North and South Sutor, and reading accounts of the gun and battery emplacements, it was apparent that many that spoke of them were referring to places within (hazardous) walking distance - clearly not something that tied in with two cliff separated by a dirty great firth!

Further reading has revealed that the installations on the south headland, South Sutor, was a problem for the military minds at the Admiralty, and that two locations where installation were constructed there actually lay on spots referred to locally as East Sutor and West Sutor, but that the Admiralty didn't understand the local lie of the land, and renamed the North Sutor South Sutor, even though they were actually next each other on the southern headland, and east and west of one another.

If anyone knows any better, or different, or if this right, or wrong, or whatever, I'd like to know, even if only to avoid spreading further confusion if I'm wrong.

Directional confusion may be more common than you think.  Dunoon has an East Bay to the North and a West Bay to the South.  If you compare the lie of Dunoon and the Sutors the NNE Direction is pretty similar.  Noone here seems to know why the bays are not North & South.

I would assume that the North Sutor was the east one and vice versa.

There is a lot to take in on this page even when you have been there.  Yes the Fox has been there too several decades ago.

Some of the mapping links do not seem to be working on the page and on the same subject I find Multimap always defaults to the whole of the UK..  This fine if your geography is reasonably good but not a lot of help to anyone who does not know where the sites are.

Maybe the military were responsible for some of the mapping around Dunoon

Can't think of anything that would cause your difficulty with the map links, they're all generated automatically and I'd see any problems fairly quickly since I use most of the once a page enters use.

If you'll pardon the expression "A link's a link" so there little I can do if it works fine for me but not for you - can't look into a problem that I can't see!

Beware of double-clicking links. Links are single-click beasts and will misbehave if double-clicked.

If you're frustrated, you could slow things down a bit an right-click on the links, this will give you the option to copy the link, and paste it into the Address Box on the broswer manually. Same as should happen when you click the link, but might provide a fix

Re the Sutors, if you dig into the map detail, you'll find the Sutors of Cromarty appear marked on the southern headland, which is never marked South Sutor, although the north headland is always marked North Sutor. My take at the moment is that the Sutors of Cromarty marked on the southern headland were the original east and west pair, until the military decided to confuse things.

I've had a run through all the links, and SURPRISE SURPRISE the only problem I've managed to highlight is with Internet Explorer.

This appears to be limited to Multimap, which is the same link in two guises, one for the Aerial view, and one for the OS option.

At first glance, I'm guessing this is down to IE's usual failure to treat the special characters used in passing the full url to specify the map type and location, as it's still pulling up the Multimap page without following the commands.

There may be a way round this by using some tricks to fool it into behaving properly, or I don't have the command string formatted properly. Fx even handles mistakes better

I'll pull the Multimap command line(s) apart, and see what can be done. Unless it's very subtle, it should be fixable (famous last words!)

I am not complaining, I just thought I would let you know.!  Most of our visitors probably use IE7 which is why I still use it.  It does mean that you have a bit of a backup on the debugging front.  

Indeed and welcome info too

I've had a look and found that the standard 'fudge' fixes the problem, so the Multimap options should be fine. Let me know if not, though IE and Fx are both fine for me.

I haven't had to use the IE engine since doing those original links, and its terrible having to use it again...

All those adverts to wait to load and have to watch as flash about all the time - Firefox blanks out every one automatically, I'd forgotten how bad things were!

IE also drives me up the wall as I can't get it to open the maps in a new tab, and every one opens in a new window, which is really really irritiating

Adverts? What adverts?  I may be tempting fate but I do not get any, not a single popup or anything else.  I suppose I am used to the separate page but I never find it a problem.

The multimap view, when viewed in standard IE, is surrounded by ads for cars, Sky, insurance quotes, Yell, and probably more.

You must have something installed if they are not visible, to stop them from being shown. What is it?

I had thought you might have had Flash, animations and images disabled, but since you use Flash Earth, that option's not a runner.

More important though, are all the map links working for you?

Sorry sunshine precluded a test of the page last night I will try and fiddle tonight.

Multimap is working fine.  There are a few ads attached but they take so long to come up I have got used to ignoring them, now you have mentioned them I am going to see them all the time.  Sorry if I mislead you.

S'ok - that's the idea behind ads after all - 'morally acceptable brainwashing'

The real problem with them is waiting for them to download and run before you get access to the page you actually want - for me, the amount of time they add to a graphic rich page like a map is unacceptable, and the placing of animated objects around the edge of something I want examine in detail is an unforgivable sin.

Even if you like to use IE, I might suggest that you use Fx for map study, it really is a lot nicer to work away without without all that rubbish flying around the edges.

Add to it Adbock Plus which will automatically block the appearance of every ad if you also add the recommended Filter Subscription.

Unfortunately, it cannot deal with the most annoying ad, those written using Flash animation - since they masquerade as 'honest' animations

However, I recently installed an add-on called Flashblock, which does exactly what it says on the box, and intercepts Flash stuff before it wastes your time being downloaded. Instead, you see a button which you can click if you actually want to see the Flash content. You can also enter sites you always want to see, like Flash Earth, and they are unaffected and behave as normal.

There are a couple of pictures of the WWI boom and gate in the first book link from this page of my website.  The book is about 1920 so I think it is out of copyright!

I have sent some of the Inverness pictures up to one of the Inverness local papers as I thought they might like to print them to see if anyone can identify the HQ building.  I have tried to identify the Kyle buildings so might ask around in Kyle when I next go through there.

MB