AA Battery Bogside Racecourse

A World War II anti-aircraft battery was sited to the east of Irvine, on Bogside Racecourse. Part of the Clyde AA Defences.

The battery was equipped with four emplacements, a command post, and an accommodation camp. Aerial photographs taken by the RAF in 1943 showed the battery in the area of Bogside racecourse, together with a number of anti-glider trenches.

There are no surviving remains reported of the battery, which lay at the centre of the racecourse, and which has also been lost over the years. However, re-examination of new aerial imagery released by Google in 2009 suggests the existence of a structure on the spot where the battery command post would have been sited, and this is marked on the map below, but still requires a site visit to confirm its function.

The line of the course can still be seen in online aerial views, together with the outline of a command post, and hut bases to the southeast. Although there appear to be no remains of the emplacements, ground scars can be seen in the area where they were located.

Site Visit 2009

Thanks to a member fromm Germany spotting the building on Google maps we made a site visit in July 2009. The Command Post was found to be in a very poor condition with one end collapsed or demolished. Roughly threequarters of it remains. The quality of the concrete and brickwork seems very poor. It was identified as a type 1 Command Post but no trace of the Instrument pits was found.

The area to the west of the post is very boggy and home to a vast number of bullrushes. The original access track from the east was just about passable although in a wetter year probably isn't. The field area round the post is covered with very tall (some well above 5 feet) grass which totally hides the building from many directions. No remains of the 4 emplacement nor the Accomodation Camp were found although some small areas of shorter grass suggested foundations might lie underneath them.

Most of the concrete inner rail stanchions round the Bogside Race Track still remain as do some of the wooden supports for hurdles. The track is clear all the way round but regularly used by youths on trials bikes and the tyremarks suggest that cars get driven round it regularly.