Torry Point Battery

Aberdeen Maritime Trail

[by Chris Croly]
When it was built in 1860 it was a training ground for the volunteers who staffed it. It became home, training ground and barracks to the soldiers stationed there until it was decommissioned in the 1950s.

In early 1935 the Battery was decommissioned by the War Office, just as Aberdeen’s housing problem was becoming alarming. The Evening Express on 14 June 1935, stated: Aberdeen Town Council are once again taking emergency steps to house homeless families at present living in tents, caravans, huts and in one case, a tool shed in Aberdeen.

The lack of affordable housing meant that many families had sub-let flats and houses from tenants. The crisis of 1934-35 arose when these tenants were asked to vacate their homes so that they could be let to the lucrative summer market. This was not the first time that this problem had arisen. In the years immediately following the Versailles Peace Treaty (28 June 1919) the City Council had converted part of the military barracks in King Street into temporary accommodation – an expedient, short-term solution which lasted for decades. Theoretically, these families were protected by the law which stipulated that if rent was restricted, no tenant or sub-tenant could be evicted, but many families fell through the net.

In September 1934 a letter from the War Department noted that Torry Battery was surplus to requirements and would revert to the Council. The Special (Accommodation) Committee duly visited with the City Architect and decided that, with some alteration, the Battery could be used as emergency accommodation. In the end there was accommodation for 20 families, each of whom had a fireplace and an oil lamp. The Press & Journal on 15 June 1935 noted that ‘the absence of gas or electricity was not regarded as being fatal to the scheme…’.

The army barracks on Castlehill were also considered as emergency housing.

The Battery was exactly as it had been when the military left the previous year. Indeed, a notice board inside the main gate still informed intruders that they would not be permitted entrance out of uniform. The sunken area which led into the magazine – previously accessed by lift shafts, used to raise the cordite and ammunition – was barricaded off.

Of the 20 houses, two were rented at 3/6d per week; two at 4/-; six at 4/6d; four at 4/9d and six at 5/6d. A caretaker was appointed, given a free house and a weekly allowance of 22/6d. A journalist from the Aberdeen Bon Accord & Northern Pictorial reported on 14 June that he had “met Mr Johnson of Plot No.9 who has been promised accommodation in the fort. He told me that any one of the improvised homes would be a veritable palace in comparison with his toolshed. When Johnson, his wife, and three children were thrown on to the streets they were forced to live in an implement hut on his allotment, exposed to the weather. ‘We’ll be fine and protected against the weather here. There are fireplaces, sinks, and everything,’ he went on, as though a fireplace was a luxury.”

Emergency or not, the families were still living at the Battery in October 1938. On 30 September 1938 Harry J. Rae, medical officer of Health, wrote to the Council stating: “The dwelling-houses are, by reason of disrepair or sanitary defects, unfit for human habitation.” The Council took this on board and decided, on 3 October, that they had “satisfied themselves that accommodation was available for the persons of the working classes who will be displaced, and can be provided by them in advance of the displacements…”. The Battery was declared a clearance area.

The families were finally moved and not long afterwards, the Battery was once again the property of the War Office for the duration of World War 2.

At the end of this war the housing shortage was still as bad. Little or no housing had been constructed during this time, whilst some houses had been lost to the 27 German bombing raids which Aberdeen suffered.

On 20 August 1946 The Press & Journal reported that the squatter movement had spread to the North and North-East of Scotland. Many demobilised soldiers and their families were looking for new accommodation, and that summer the situation was aggravated by seasonal lets.

People were squatting in buildings which had been appropriated for the war effort, because these often had gas, electricity and running water. In Aberdeen, families had begun to squat in the nissen huts at Torry Battery and Balnagask. On 20 August 1946 the Evening Express reported that there were some 20 families at the Battery and its associated huts and camps; the next day that number had risen to 40 – the Battery was full. An official from the City Council visited and took names.

On 22 August the Evening Express reported that Balnagask Golf club house and an unoccupied dwelling house at 63 Albury Road had also been acquired by the squatters. Prime Minister Clement Attlee and Home Secretary Chunter Ede ordered that there was to be no eviction of squatters to make way for the Polish troops who were being brought over en masse from Italy.

In fact, Aberdeen City Council had been ready for this issue for some months. In January 1946, following correspondence with the Department of Health, the Council had resolved to convert Torry Battery into nine single rooms, eight two-roomed and two three-roomed houses, at a cost of £300. But the military authorities held up the proceedings.

At Torry Battery was Mrs Alan Graham, whose husband was in the Royal Navy, serving in Singapore. She lived in the huts with her two children, having been turned out of her house in Donald’s Court. Mr and Mrs Cyril Broderick were there, too, with their young baby. Cyril, from Newfoundland, had been serving in Invernesshire as a lumberjack. His wife said she had squeezed into her mother’s house – which was already crowded – with the baby. After her husband’s release there were 14 people staying in that house. Mrs Broderick wrote to George VI asking for help; she received a reply from the Secretary for Scotland’s private secretary.

Councillor McIntosh, Aberdeen’s housing convener, was quoted as saying: “In cases where the camps are not wanted by the military authorities – and I cannot say whether or not these huts at Balnagask and Torry Fort are – the attitude of the government seems to be that steps must be taken to make such places habitable.”

One of the families who were squatting in a hut with five other families was headed by Mr Henderson. When a reporter called he found Mrs Henderson ‘looking for a place to hang up the photograph of her husband and herself taken outside Buckingham Place after his investiture…’. In September 1946 the Council took over the camps, organising a communal water supply, sanitary arrangements, lighting, partitions and a coal bunker in each hut. Rent was set at eight shillings per hut. Life settled down at the Battery.

From an oral history project conducted by Aberdeen City Council Archaeological Unit it is apparent there that there was a great community spirit. The young boys remembered playing football along what was known as Main Street, the path running between the two rows of barracks buildings on the landward side of the battery.

The Council regarded these people as householders, not eligible for inclusion on the housing list. But the Balangask Hut Tenants’ Association thought otherwise, and petitioned to have the residents’ names included. The Council acquiesced.

Protests centred around getting permanent accommodation for these families, 44 in total. By the end of February 15 families had been moved out of the huts, and by the early Fifties they had all gone. The Battery was partly demolished and over the next 20 years became an eyesore.

Neglect, however, is not always a bad thing, and this brings us to the second group. The thick walls, the ruined buildings, and the increasing scrub and rough ground is irresistible to migrant birds which have struggled across the North Sea in foul weather. Each spring the wheatears arrive back from Africa, en route to Greenland or the Cairngorms, and the meadow pipits take up residence. Warblers rest in the gorse bushes and linnets feed inside the walls. With the common birds come occasional rarities – shore lark, ortolan bunting, woodchat shrike, greenish warbler, and bluethroat – making this an essential stopping-off point for birdwatchers as well.

Torry Point Battery, now scheduled as an ancient monument, has a lively history which makes it a fascinating landmark. I admit, though, I would not have liked to live there, with or without electricity.

Sections of the interior of the Torry Point Battery were excavated by Aberdeen City Council Archaeological Unit in 2004. Some of the results of this research are on display in the Maritime Museum in an exhibition entitled The Cheerful Vale: exploring the past of Torry, Tullos and Balnagask.

CHRIS CROLY gained an MA (Hons) in History at the University of Strathclyde and a M.Phil and Ph.D. in History from the University of Cambridge. Assistant Keeper (Research) with Aberdeen City Council’s Archaeological Unit with a remit for historical research, curating the Tolbooth Museum and commemorative plaques.

Cache Located within the grounds - Please Take Your Own Pen / Pencil