A lead from the local Museum has led to the discovery of a second range at Bishop's Glen.  I have had to put the lat lon in from Flashearth as our sat images of the area are not of good quality.

They are quite close to each other so there seems little point in a separate page.

Very good.

I can lift more accurate points from other maps later, so the the FE points are fine to get us into the right area.

Yes, same page is fine given the info - they might have had more local name (might even have been Bishop's Glen Range) but Dunoon does the job and means strangers will know where they are without too much effort.

The page title will need an "s" added to the end!

I was mulling that one over and wondered if it was two distinct ranges, or one rifle range (as in the generic name of the facility) with two rifle ranges (as in the specific shooting ranges that the range contained) - but that might just be me not thinking too clearly at the moment.

I was thinking of Patterton, which led to Darnely, but which both had individual ranges within their perimeters, as it were.

For what it is worth they seem to be separate ranges from different dates.  The lower one must have been set up before the waterworks filtration beds were built as it would mean firing over them.  I would guess the upper one was built as a later replacement on safety grounds.  The fact that the lower one was still on later maps does not necessarily imply that it was still in use.  

Before I make an assumption, and a fool of myself, can you confirm the relative direction of the upper and lower references, viz north, south, east, west?

Correct roughly speaking.  The lower one is more or less north south ( direction of fire ) and the upper one pretty much east west ( direction of fire.  Being more accurate would be a tad pedantic.

;D

That really wasn't even an attempt at positions, it was just a the compass points to hint at what I meant, so that result was completely coincidental.

Agreed on the pedant side of things.

I try and do with north, south, east, and west, provided the subject is not too far from these, and then revert to the northwest etc whne things are clearly between the two. I've never used, and would find something else first, the next variant of north-northeast and friend. They're just too long, and start to look silly if more than one is needed. If we ever need to be that exact, a nice honest bearing will do just fine, I think.

Help...

One of the point you added from your Flash Earth exploration is missing a longitude - can you reconstitute it?

Safer to drop it in here at the moment, as I might have the page open while playing with the map - I tend to leave it in edit mode rather then keep on saving endless fiddles/edits.

Added later...
I've released the page as the points given show the ranges lie east to west of one another, and they both run generally northwest to southeast.

Lower Range   Target

Lower Range    Target                        55 56 49..1N   4 56 39.3 W
                      200yds firing position   55 56 54.6N    4 56 39.9W
                      400yds firing position   55 56 59.2N    4 56 40.4W
Direction of fire North South

The upper Range you should have from the mapping.   Direction of fire approx East West

I can asure you that they run in different directions.

Proper points in place now, and all looks more sensible, however I think you'll agree we have a west and east range, as opposed to north and south.

I see the 1940s map shows the range crossing the road through Bishop's Glen, clear and to the east of the waterworks for the reservoir. This is probably a pretty good sign that it would have bee referred to as Bishop's Glen, but we'll stick with Dunoon ranges, and hope something concrete turns up, especially with no name for the other one.

I will pluralise the name - when I remember :B

The map lines are handy for the ranges  -  I knew they'd have a proper use one day :)

I have another mystery for mulling over.  Blundering about in the forest looking for an artefact shown on OS maps which could be associated with the Eastern rifle range in Bishop's Glen I found it was this concrete base.  It is about 6ft square and some corrugated asbestos debris and zinc flashing lying nearby suggests that these were used as the covering of a wooden structure.

Anyone care to hazard a guess as to what it was used for?

Range control hut?

With nice thick walls supported by the substantial base.

As I've noted elsewhere, there are occasions where it would be nice if there was a obvious reference book or similar to go and have a look at for layout of the same kind of site.

The fixing are interesting, they're too small for anything too substantial or tall, and one could almost be forgiven for assuming it was the site of something not intended for occupation - that's only a hint based on the limited space between the fixings.

Store?

I'm thinking procedure, rather than long-term. In other words, ammunition and perhaps weapons might have been brought there on the day, and administered from a single point by the range officer in charge, then removed at the end of the day.

I don't think it would have been for storing ammo or guns as it is quite a bit higher than the mapping suggests the targets were and hence likely to be hit by a stray round.  I couldn't find anything in the predicted area.  The hut base is shown as a small square on the largest scale OSgetamap site.   It may not be associated with the range in any case.  The tame local historian knew nothing about it.  I agree that it is too small to look as if it was used by humans so it is probably for the storage of something, but what?  It is also too small to have been a viable animal shelter.   If there is anything else around it it is covered by and area of wind blown trees.

I see.

Discounting a range connection, it's hard to think of a use - we could be looking out of context now, and the reason for its being is no longer present.

The base is substantial, and was worth someone's time and effort to transport the material and build it there. The symmetry suggest something regular, and which the raised edge and studs located and held down. The studs are relatively few and light, and the raised section is relatively low, so whatever was placed there was neither particularly tall nor robust. A bit of wind on anything heavy/tall would have ripped clear of those fixings. A small lattice tower might have survived, but I'm really only mentioning this to dismiss it,

It would have been secure against casual attack by people, and would have protected any contents from someone without tools, or casual access.

Forestry workers' tool shed?

Water tank?

Last one is really a hint towards something heavy, but not tall, which would have justified the effort of making the concrete base, but providing fittings for something that could not be very tall.

A water tank seems unlikely as, if you look at getamap you will see it is on a shoulder of the hillside and not easily supplied by a burn.

The most puzzling thing to me is that the base extends so far out from the upstand where the fixing bolts are.  It appears to be about 6" thick and would have required a fair amount of material.

It is a mystery but someone might know.  I have asked on http://www.dunoon.tv .

I received this the other day by email:-

If we are thinking of the same place, there was a small shed with windows all round which was used for firewatching in the Fifties/early sixties. There was also a telephone line which led off, towards Innellan, I think, as this was part of Corlarach Forest.

If it is the same place, it is on a small hill which gave a good all round view of the surrounding forest while the trees were small,and could be seen from many parts of the town

Certainly sounds like like it all fits.

The concrete base would be substantial enough to survive the "traffic" of a body fidgeting and shuffling about all day, and not rot etc like wood, and those fixing look just right to hold down a one-man enclosure. The purpose fits the size too.

Is it worth a page?  It is certainly welll hidden if not entirely lost and I doubt if many people know of it's existence including the curator of Castlehouse Museum.

I've done a lot of hunting for the correct name, but nothing official seems to jump out of the woodwork.

The only definite seems to be the term for the occupant, who would have been a fire watcher (two words, no hyphenation), which probably reflects the age of the term, as I had been guided by firefighter, and fire-eater. Presumably their more common use led to their development.

http://www.for.gov.bc.ca/tasb/legsregs/archive/fpc/fpcaregs/ffirepre/ffpasr.htm#4

Now, is it a hut, or a post, or a lookout, or a... ?

I favour "post", as in "The position where someone (as a guard or sentry) stands or is assigned to stand", so the fire watcher can be provided with a hut at the post.

Can we approximate a marker position for the remains?

And lastly, a location name. Bishop's Glen seems better than Dunoon, even for the rifle ranges. Would this be better for the ranges, and applicable to this post?

Fire Watchers Post seems OK

It is shown on the OS getamap at NS 161763  Our Latlon Map is very fuzzy at that point and it does not show up.

Bishop's Glen is OK for the titles as long as Dunoon comes into the blurb.

Apparently there's a run on apostrophes at the shops today - Bishop's Glen Fire Watchers Post  :)

getamap's as rough as badger... you're looking at a possible error of around 200 metres, and that's on top of any error from not being able to identify the point of interest.

You can use our old pal RCAHMS and the Pastmap view to get near spot-on fixes for locations.

If you pan and zoom the map until you're close enough in to eyeball the point of interest in, then all you have to do is put the mouse pointer on the spot, then look down at the status bar of your browser - along the bottom of the screen - and you will see the grid reference of the point read out there continuously.

This is very useful for features that are not identified, or don't appear in the aerial view, but you know exactly where they are on the ground.

...the area of Bishop's Glen, west of Dunoon...

The peg for the Firewatchers hut is a bit out.  It should be here http://www.multimap.com/maps/?map=55.9444498,-4.9463869|18|8#map=55.94513,-4.9446|18|8&loc=GB:-0.1261:51.509:8||United%20Kingdom  assuming that this will take you to the same point.

Sorted (told you the getamap view was rubbish for that job ;) ).

If you're quoting a Multimap link, because of the character combinations they use, it's best to wrap it inside url tags (9th from the left in the toolbar above):

[ur1=http://www.multimap.com/maps/?map=55.9444498,-4.9463869|18|8#map=55.94513,-4.9446|18|8&loc=GB:-0.1261:51.509:8||United%20Kingdom]hut location[/ur1]

Note that I've used ur1 rather than url above, to prevent the example being changed into a link.

Which shows as hut location in the message.

It's actually important for Multimap links, because the use of the | (pipe) to format their links means the open url is inactive after that is read, and if anyone clicks on the link, they get taken to the point at which you first opened the Multimap view, and not the one you eventually panned to and wanted to provide the link for.

I hope that made some sort of sense :-/