B2/1 HAA Gun Site, Portishead, Bristol

B2/1 HAA Gun Site, Portishead, Bristol.
Building these sites started in1938 and the battery was manned by No. 237 Battery, 76th Heavy Anti Aircraft Regiment, Royal Artillery.

Plan:
P - Parking.
GP - Guard Post.
A - Ammunition Magazine.
CP - Command Post plotting room.
1-2-3-4 - Gun emplacements.
MT - Motor Transport.

Guard post.

The track into the camp.
Red circle : gun sites.
Yellow circle : ammunition magazine.

Ammunition magazine, semi submerged and has a passageway running down past the magazine and back up towards the gun site.

The magazine passage way where shells would be brought in down this passage from transport and placed in store. Then when the ready ammunition lockers needed filling up on the gun emplacements, it would be taken out the other end.
This is too narrow for lorries, so presumably that all ammunition would be moved by hand.

The internal passage running along the magazine and you can see the small windows. Pipe clips on the wall may have taken heating pipes.

The first room with air vent in the roof and heavy door hinges.

A better view of the doors and windows.

Continuing in.

To the left side on the path to the command post. All three command posts we have visited seem to be slightly different. This one has a couple of half round small (Nissen hut style) huts slightly sunken into the ground

Ignore the fancy camouflage it was we think once used as paint balling.

To the left side on the path to the command post. All three command posts we have visited seem to be slightly different. This one has a couple of half round small (nissen hut style) huts slightely sunken into the ground.

On the left of the path just before the post entrance is this half size Nissen type room and it was was for the Predictor.

The predictor may have been placed in this open area.

Some of this information has come from Sub Brit.

Command post & plotting room entrance.

Plotting room inside.

Plotting room.

Plotting room roof.

From the roof of the control post I took four photos and merged them to make this panoramic view

This could be a post war computing room as some AA sites continued in use until the 1950's and they replaced the old control posts? For information on post war uses of AA sites go to Sub Brit.

Inside the building.

The view towards the accommodation on the left hand side and straight ahead the MT section.

MT garage.
I have taken the liberty of placing a lorry in the MT shed sitting over the vehicle pit.

MT garage servicing pit.

It just shows how large this site was and how it must have expanded and become a more permanent camp. When AA gun sites were set up, the gunners lived in tents, the guns used sandbag emplacements. The control post was open sand bags as well. Gradually they became more permanent and needed quite a large camp with cooking, heating, living accommodation and proper hard stands for the guns.

Avonmouth Docks across the marshes.

The road running around the gun emplacements with what looks like a set of gate posts.

Gun emplacement with several ammunition lockers around the wall.

Gun emplacement.

The type of 'Hold Fasts' (the mountings in the floor for the guns to bolt down to. This one we have seen before at RAF Cleave which was an Antiaircraft Training Camp on the north Cornish coast. They were for 3.7inch Heavy Anti-aircraft guns.

The red line could be the line that the sights must NOT depress any lower and SA10 a quick reference for the gunners?

Gun emplacement.

This site is in pretty good condition and in my opinion should be presurved.