Monument record MHG56131 - Pillbox or Battle Control - Evanton Airfield, Alness

A pillbox or battle control was noted by ARCH's Evanton Wartime Remains project in 2013. A ruinous brick building now in a field on an elevated location overlooking the airfield, was remembered by some as a pillbox, and by some as a guardhouse. A report undertaken in 2002 thought it might be a gun emplacement or listening post (see HER record EHG1147). However, it was in the position where Battle Control is listed on a 1942 wartime map (National Archive AIR 29-594). It had a concrete roof, grooved radially, with nails around the perimeter, and a roof three bricks thick. It was almost square, c. 3.1 m by 3.05m. There were lintels underneath. It appeared to have been dragged, though probably not far, and there were brick remains in the fields around (Brora and Hamilton bricks can be identified). Alpin MacDonald remembered the structure as having a peaked roof. No one remembered a road leading to it. Eddie Szymborski remembered playing there as a boy. Roddie remembered that Ian Dunnett had the field during the war. The best interpretation for the structure wa either the remains of an unusually small Battle Control, or a pillbox to defend it. Contributors: Alpin MacDonald, Roddie Lovett, Ian Midgley, Eddie Szymborski. <1>