Inchkeith island

This week’s illustration taken from James Grant's ‘Old and New Edinburgh' shows the island of Inchkeith which lies in the Firth of Forth.

120 workmen employed by Messrs. Hill and Co. of Gosport, Hampshire, supervised by Colonel John Yerbury Moggridge R.E. landed on the island in August 1878 to build three coastal artillery batteries and a military road.

Wooden huts were erected to accommodate the workers and donkeys fitted with panniers used to transport building materials to each of the sites. By July 1881 work had progressed sufficiently enough for the forts to be occupied by a detachment of sixty gunners.

Two years later the batteries had been completed and by 1898 had been armed with one 9.2-inch breech-loader and two 10-inch rifled muzzle loaders while additional emplacements had been equipped with two 6-inch breech-loaders and two 4.7-inch breech-loaders.

The guns mounted on No. 1 North-West Battery protected the upper part of the Firth of Forth as far as Prestonpans in East Lothian. No. 2 North-East Battery in conjunction with the battery built on Kinghorn-ness covered the north channel of the Firth of Forth, while the guns mounted on No. 3 South-East Battery protected the Port of Leith.