Carlingnose Barracks 1957 – Closure

 
The barracks closed in 1957, and were sold in 1960.

Carlingnose Barracks, looking from Carlingnose Battery towards the station

Carlingnose Barracks  from Ferryhills Road

The former Submarine Mining Station buildings at Port Laing

1957 – Last Man Standing

Notes from Laurie Alexander, the last man to leave Port Laing Barracks in 1957.

268 Independent Maintenance Battery,
Royal Artillery,
Port Laing Barracks,
North Queensferry.
(My time there from end of May 1956 to end of March 1957 when it was disbanded.)

CO: Major McCosh
Adj: Capt. Maxham
RA clerks:  Sgt John Guthrie – demobbed Autumn 1956 (Orcadian); Laurie Alexander – promoted Bombardier when Guthrie demobbed

Some names remembered
WOII Birse RA
Sgt Laird RAPC
Sgt Fletcher (QM) RA
Sgt Corsar RE or REME
Private Urquhart RE or REME – Home town: Glencorse
Private Souter RE or REME – Home town: Edinburgh
Gnr Johnston RA – Home town: South Queensferry
Gnr Williams RA – Home town: Bridgend, Wales

The function of this unit was the maintenance of coastal heavy gun emplacements.
These were on the following islands in the Firth of Forth: Inchcolm, Inchmickery, Cramond and Inchkeith.  On the coast, they were at Kinghorn, Elie, Crail, Broughty Ferry and Nigg. (There may have been some other sites existing at that time.)

There were two RA gunners (privates) on each island and no more than a dozen in the camp.  They were more than outnumbered by the REME and RE contingent responsible for the gun emplacements.  There were also two cooks from the catering corps.

The unit was gradually run down during the winter months of 1956-7 with the guns being rendered innocuous.  Finally tons of HE and armour-piercing shells were removed from the magazines and loaded onto railway wagons for dispersal.  I suspect they were dumped in the sea; possibly the Irish Sea.

During the last month of the unit, there was only Major McCosh and myself remaining.  The CO had commuted from his home in Edinburgh during my 10 months there, and I was allowed to travel daily from Linlithgow where I lived.

There was not a thing remaining when I finally left the camp.

Laurie provided this sketch of how he remembered the buildings at Port Laing . . .

. . . and this copy of his leave pass