I came across these two pieces of pipe on the shore at the rear of the Greenock Torpedo Factory last weekend.  I think they are/were too thin walled to have been from an outfall.  Are they torpedo casings? I don't know, suggestions welcome.

Without something for reference in the pic, it's hard to judge the size, but they just look like old bit of assorted drain, and way too small.

Torpedoes are relatively "huge" (description by someone who thought they knew what size one would be until they met one and I got a laugh).

The standard or Heavyweight torpedo as used by the UK for years (ie back to war time) is 21" in diameter, and used by various vessel above and below water.

The size falls to 18" for those being dropped from aircraft.

There's also a Lightweight version, which is about 350 mm or 13", I think.

I'm avoiding any specific references as they're all Mark something, depending on age and use.

Have to admit, I'd be most impressed if anything survived from the Greenock RNTF after all this time, think of the tides, souvenir hunters, metal detectors and the like that mist have been over the foreshore since the place closed - not to mention neds looking for a bit of 'scrap'.

There are remnants identified around the Arrochar range. Never seen them myself, and only learnt about them from being in here, which is post my wandering around the area time unfortunately.

Sorry I should have thought of scale but I realised there was a police car above with the occupants watching me.  It was on the open public beach but I guess someone thought my behaviour odd.  I would say they were about 13 or 14 inches in diameter.  I cannot see them as outfall or drain pipes as the wall thickness was quite thin and drain pipes are built to stand up to rocks pressing against them etc..

They do look a lot smaller in the pic.

My head still thinks having anything remain after all this time is unlikely, BUT, it also reckons there is a possibility that the same time and tide (but no the collectors) would raise the possibility of such an item being revealed if it ad been abandoned and buried all those years ago.

Re the photography, I didn't get round to Blogging this, but did circulate among some photographers for info, so still have the link. This is a recent BBC article that takes a look at the paranoia that seems to be affecting police officers, apparently the young and inexperienced (why is it always young cops that want to throw their weight about? ) are the most likely to have a go at someone, and the next most likely is private security - no surprise there then.

Innocent photographer or terrorist?

If I haven't passed it on somewhere previously, this item provides a downloadable reference regarding photographers rights in the UK.

UK Photographers Rights

Probably time to do that Blog entry, and place a permanent link to the Rights document.

I remember taking the pics of the remains at Greenhill and emptying a car park!  People could not understand why I was taking pictures of what they thought was a blank surface.

A slight ambiguity in the current page.  You say ,"the site of the coastal battery is now occupied by naval buildings".  Whilst this is true the name of the buildings on the site is "Navy Buildings" and remains so with the MCA in it as far as I am aware.  This could give rise to some confusion.

Small letters - navy buildings - buildings connected with naval things and things done by a navy, means nothing more, or less.

I don't have any knowledge of capitalised Navy Buildings, or even what that means. Does it mean they are Royal Navy buildings? Or does it mean the building are known by the name Navy Building, and have nothing to do with the Royal Navy or RN - now that is confusing.

"In the postwar years, the site of the old Fort Matilda coastal battery was occupied by naval buildings, which still remain and are now occupied by the Marine & Coastguard Agency."

This seems perfectly clear to me, telling me that the buildings were used for naval purposes in the past, are still standing on the site, and now have a non-naval occupant.



(I'm becoming hypercritical of word use at the moment, having had reason to revisit a number of older pages, and found that reading them months after they were written, they are politely described as drivel. Clearly making sense in the context of when they were written with a surfeit of information being whittled down, without that information in view, they make less sense than they should. Capitalisation, acronyms, jargon, grammar, spoken vs written style are all jarring in many cases, and being "Dropped on from a great height" when spotted now.)

I cannot imagine "Navy Buildings" being used by the Royal Navy. The word "Navy" without any "Royal" is decidedly American. The feeling no doubt prevails in the world today that no qualifying adjective is now required: Navy means only one NAVY, and that's the Amderican one.

Indeed, I've gone to great pains to ensure that the terms army, navy, and air force are only ever used when being used as generalisations.

The proper names British Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force being applied when those organisations are being specifically referenced, with the alternatives of RN and RAF appearing when they can simplify thing and reduce clutter.

There is a problem with the British Army, since it has never managed to achieve Royal status, so there's no RA - which is the Royal Artillery in any case.

In UK writing Army and army seem to crop up with similar frequency and understanding, but as Dugald observes, American writers tend to spray Army/army, Navy/navy, and Air Force / air force with the general assumption that the rest of the world will read them all with US prefixing each.

Royal Navy, and Royal Naval, are particularly aggravating, with most writers using the two as if they were interchangeable terms, which they are not. Unfortunately, the free use of both terms for the same subject has muddied the waters. I find myself trawling endless Royal Navy references in order to find the correct form, and even that doesn't help in many cases. Just try and find an official ruling for RNAS, as in Royal Naval Air Station.

I was talking about the official name of the building (s) which was/is Navy Buildings, Eldon St., Greenock.  It took over from Naval House which was in Clarence St., Greenock  and was the HQ of HMS Orlando ( page to come).

The USN is very similar in many ways to the RN, well it was started by a scotsman.  To the RN the word "Navy" is synonymous with "Royal Navy" .

I just pointed it out as readers from Greenock might be tempted to "correct" it.

Quoted from The Fox

To the RN the word "Navy" is synonymous with "Royal Navy"

Only to a Brit, not a proud American

I personally doubt that in a world where the education system is throwing spelling and grammar into the nearest skip, and txt spk s ur std mns f communicating, there will be anyone left that understand the subtle difference between a building named Navy Buildings or Naval House, and the Navy, navy, or Royal Navy.

I have to admit that this is just a bit of a personal gripe, having noticed that many articles are written (and let me add, I don't mean in here, I'm generalising) with capitalisation of every name, proper or otherwise, being sprayed about like machine-gun fire. Same goes for the use of quotation marks, bold type, hyphenation, and italics - pulled out of the toolbox at every opportunity, whether appropriate or not.

These are tools to be applied only when they make meaning clear, otherwise they should be left in the box.

It may or may not be fully correct, but at least the Wikepedia internal Manual of Style has reasoned rules for applying these embellishments, which leads to consistency - not really possible nowadays, thanks to the worldwide nature of the web. Even the MoS gives up and states that articles should be written in the national style applicable, and that others should not come along later and "correct" it to their particular local variation.