AA Battery Cardross

View over battery

A World War II anti-aircraft battery was sited to the southwest of Cardross, on the Firth of Clyde. Site number AN4. Part of the Clyde AA Defences, the battery was also known as Murrays.

The battery was equipped with four emplacements, armed with 4.5-inch guns, a command post, and an accommodation camp to the east. Two further emplacements, of a different design, were added to the original arc of four, and mounted 3.7-inch guns. Aerial photographs taken by the RAF in 1949 showed the site as described, with some 33 huts on either side of the access track to the northeast. These also show the battery was equipped with a GL Radar mat and ramp to the northwest, and two separate magazines.

The UK Fortifications Club reports that the battery served a dual purpose, and also provided coverage of the Cardross boom. Complement given as: "6 THEN 4 x 4.5�, 2 x 3.7�, 1 x 40mm, MANNED BY HAA UNITS 335/773".^[1]

Site visit

A site visit during January 2008 found the site and remains of the battery in a field to the west of the access track.

A few walls and several concrete bases are all that remain of the accommodation camp to the east of the track and a small burn. The beach area south of the track is strewn with various bricks, concrete blocks, and pieces of reinforced concrete, giving the impression that several buildings have been razed and the debris bulldozed onto the shore.

The site contains the remains of six emplacement, four original brick structures, and two constructed from concrete blocks. The brick emplacements are octagonal, with each of the four shorter sides equipped with shelters, three of the longer sides are plain walls, while the fourth side is open for access. The design is similar to that seen at Mollandhu to the north of Cardross, and Flatterton, near Greenock. Moving clockwise around the emplacement arc, the remains become increasingly decayed and dilapidated. Each emplacement was noted to have an open shelter attached on one side, possibly an air raid shelter for the crew - photographs from 1941 have shown the presence of a number of bomb craters in the ground around the site. No evidence of the holdfasts could be found with the emplacements, which have been reused as animal shelters.

The two concrete emplacement appear to be additions, and are square structures each with four ammunition shelters, one located in each corner. Their holdfast are easily identified within, complete with one inch fixing bolts. Three sections of light gauge railway line have been sunk vertically in the base around the holdfast bolts, but there is no immediate indication as to their purpose. Both emplacements have what appears to be remains from the Nissen huts dumped on their west side.

The command post is heavily overgrown, hindering examination. The structure is unusual in that it appears to have a ramp on the east side which leads down into the inner rooms. At their juncture with the building, sections of both end and side walls are missing, creating a large entrance into the building. The building follows the pattern we have categorised as Type 1, containing a single large room, a small plotting room, and two smaller rooms. The interior walls within the post carry a number of unknown mounting not seen elsewhere. Externally, the post has the usual set of three instrument pits, one for the height finder, one for the predictor, and one presently unknown as to purpose, containing a circular concrete base with a unusually shaped centre.

A manhole was found to the south of the command post, with ladder rungs set in to the wall and leading to a brick chamber about six feet square. This has not been seen elsewhere and its purpose is unknown.

A small manhole was seen in the field east of the command post, and is thought to be part of a sewage system for the site.

On the eastern perimeter of the field are the remains of three demolished huts. One appears to have had cubicles, and is assumed to have been the latrines.