500 years of strife and tribulation.

Another glorious day here, in NE Scotland. This is the view from the headland known as Goats Hillock looking towards the Northern Frontier. From this spot you can see defensive structures reflecting troubled times over the last 500 years.

The building on the horizon to the right is New Slains Castle, built by the Earl of Erroll in 1597 on the site of a much older fortified tower.

The brick structures to the left are the remains of a second world war LORAN station. The station was one of many run by the RAF to provide a means of navigation for aircraft on missions over Europe. The acronym stands for Long Range Aid to Navigation. For an explanation of how it all works look here.

The concrete hatch in the foreground is the entrance to a Royal Observer Corps underground monitoring post. With the start of the cold war and the increasing threat of nuclear attack in the 1950s, the ROC had the responsibility of reporting nuclear bursts and monitoring radioactive fall-out. To allow them to do this a network of 1563 underground monitoring posts were constructed throughout Great Britain & Northern Ireland. This one was maintained in operational readiness from June 1959 to September 1991. If you want to take a peek inside then look here.

Finally on the far horizon you can see a white globular structure. This is the powerful radar at RAF Buchan which forms part of the UK's aerial surveillance system. You may need to zoomify to see it.