RCAHMS visit Inchkeith
21 July 2009As part of the ‘Defence of Britain’ project, RCAHMS has carried out a comprehensive photographic survey of the island of Inchkeith.
Sitting at the mid-point of the Firth of Forth between the coastal town of Kinghorn in Fife and the Port of Leith in Edinburgh, Inchkeith has a remarkable history.
Thought to be named after Robert de Keith, to whom the island was granted in 1010 by Malcolm II in return for his efforts in defeating the Danes, Inchkeith was the site of a plague colony in 1497, was fortified by English and French troops in the sixteenth century, boasts a Stevenson lighthouse built in 1803, and was used as a strategic defensive base from the Napoleonic Wars through to the First and Second World Wars.
Such a long and colourful past has left a wide variety of structures on the island. The earliest defensive remains recorded by the RCAHMS team include a gateway dated 1564 and bearing the Royal Coat of Arms of Mary Queen of Scots, who visited the island in the mid sixteenth century to inspect the French garrison stationed there. The gateway that still stands was part of a French-built fortress largely demolished in 1567, although slight remains were recorded adjacent to the 1803 lighthouse.
Inchkeith was left undefended from the eighteenth century until the Victorian period, when new fears over the protection of Leith Docks led to the construction of three purpose-built forts, two of which retain carved dates of 1880 with the initials ‘V.R’. – standing for ‘Victoria Regina’. All were built in stone with subterranean magazines and crew rooms, many of which still survive.
The twentieth century defences include three large-calibre gun emplacements. Dating from 1903, they were used in both the First and Second World Wars. During the Second World War at least four anti-aircraft emplacements were added, one of which supposedly shot down a German plane.
Many of the structures on Inchkeith have been listed and scheduled by Historic Scotland. Permission for RCAHMS to land on the privately owned island was granted by Ormac (810) Ltd, Maidencraig House, Edinburgh (Sir Tom Farmer CVO CBE KCSG DL).
