VOLUNTEERS' BATTERY

THE VOLUNTEERS’ BATTERY
One of the first batteries to be built to defend Hoy Sound.  In the 1860s batteries were built and guns installed around Orkney’s shores, manned by local volunteers.
In the late 1850s a new threat of war against France emerged.  All around Britain local volunteer units were raised to man new coast defences.  The Stromness Corps of Artillery Volunteers were formed in 1862 and the following year they were supplied with two 32-pounder smoothbore guns.  Later these were replaced by 64 pounders.

A new war against France never came but the local Volunteers continued to man guns here well into the 1900s.  In 1910, 4 7-inch breech loading guns replaced the 64 pounders.  They were manned by the newly-formed Orkney Royal Garrison Artillery, which also provided gun crews for the new batteries near here in WW1.


Nowadays, it is just a few yards of ruined wall, much overgrown with grass and weeds; it is also the half-way point in my current walk circuit.