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View Full Version : Inchterf Proving Range, Kirkintilloch, Dec. ‘09



wolfism
22-12-2009, 11:36 PM
A few years ago, Inchterf was shrouded in secrecy, wrapped in razor wire and patrolled by Military Police dogs. All that leaked out was a series of ground-shaking explosions. Known by folk living in nearby Milton or Kilsyth as “The Gun Range”, today it stands silent, surrounded by reeds and boggy pools in the floodplain of the Kelvin.

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The remarkable thing about the proving range isn’t the motley collection of buildings dating from the Great War through to the 1950’s, which are currently used by car mechanics and plant hire firms – but the line of enormous concrete structures which form the stop butts. These have some similarity to the Kreigsmarine’s U-boat pens at Brest – the scale of the concrete work is unbelievable. Unbelievable, until you realise that men stood 150 yards away and fired 12 inch artillery shells directly towards it using howitzers and battleship guns. Inchterf was designed by Beardmores for a very specific purpose – to be operated as a proving range. Most artillery ranges are practice ranges, designed to give artillerymen a chance to fire their guns during exercises. Some are zeroing ranges, where the accuracy of the guns and ordnance can be checked. But Inchterf was a proving range, where the explosive power of propellant, and the strength of gun barrels and breeches, was tested – sometimes to destruction.

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One reason I wanted to see Inchterf is that I developed a personal obsession with Beardmores when I was younger. It was difficult to find books about them, but I kept reading references to William Beardmore and the huge business he built in Glasgow, which at that time was the shipbuilding capital of the world. Beardmores were arguably the world’s first “integrated arms manufacturer”, in other words they made every kind of weapon system from the shell, to the gun that fired it, to the battleship it was mounted on, plus the machinery used to build all three. Beardmore senior bought the Glasgow foundry business of Reochs, and it grew rapidly through the 1870’s, in parallel with the British Empire’s appetite for war. At its height, William Beardmore jnr. ran a manufacturing business that employed 50,000 people: making airships, tanks, battleships, heavy artillery, taxis, trains, armour plate, prefabricated houses, diesel engines, submarines, light arms, ammunition, motorbikes, buses, aircraft, machine tools, iron and exotic steel alloys. Beardmores was the largest industrial conglomerate in Scotland, bigger even than the mighty Colvilles, John Browns or North British Locos. It was also one of the world’s largest arms manufacturers.

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Although Inchterf was only a small part of the Beardmore empire, more of it remains than any of his other undertakings. The battleship yard at Dalmuir was cleared decades ago, and the Parkhead Forge has long since been demolished – in its place stands a shopping centre. Although Beardmores made many things, their staple for many decades was artillery. The Parkhead Forge was an armoury, and its giant presses, lathes and mills turned out guns up to 16 inches in calibre. As a result, Beardmores needed somewhere to test their weapons, and now comes the true history of Inchterf. Contrary to what Secret Scotland say, the archives reveal that Beardmore set up their proof range at Inchterf in 1915, at the same time as they extended their Parkhead and Dalmuir howitzer plants. Inchterf was a farm on a sandy outcrop in the middle of a bog: “inch” is Scots for island, and “terf” means bog. The range was part of the great expansion in capacity which the War Department encouraged the firm to install … but then refused to pay for after the war was won! William Beardmore’s financial trouble in the 1930’s stems partly from the fact that although he helped to win the war, the Government didn’t keep their side of the bargain once it was over. Conspiracy theorists maintain that Beardmores’ rivals, Vickers, were pulling political levers in order to weaken them.

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wolfism
22-12-2009, 11:37 PM
The firm was affected badly by the Great Depression, and the Bank of England took control of Beardmores at the same time as Armstrong Whitworth failed. Both firms, and many others, were bailed out, partly nationalised and then run for several years by the Bank of England (sounds familiar?) The Board of Trade took over the running of certain parts of the firm in the early 1930’s, and by the time William Beardmore jnr. died in 1936, he had lost control of his empire. Inchterf was a unique asset, so with rearmament on the agenda from 1935, the facilities at the range were extended and in the late 1930’s it was placed in the hands of the Royal Navy. It was styled ”Proof and Experimental Establishment” and devoted to tests, proofing and evaluation: the first round was fired by the military in July 1940. By then, the range had taken on its current shape: the Kelvin Valley railway line brought weapons and ammunition to Inchterf from Beardmores’ factories, then gun carriages and turrets were set up on the range. There were two main batteries, East and West, each with eight gun positions: they fired 150 metres into sand bays contained by the massive concrete stop works. The buildings have been hacked around since, but at one time there were labs, a tailor’s shop (to sew the charge bags inside the shells), instrument houses, messes, a fire station, canteen … and over 200 staff.

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The reason I was obsessed with Beardmores was their sheer inventiveness: William Beardmore pioneered all kinds of new technologies, although his prodigal nature usually ran ahead of the firm’s ability to make money from them. Parkhead was only one of several iron, steel and heavy engineering plants in the group, though it was the showpiece. In 1896, Beardmores commissioned a 12,000 ton hydraulic press, and a new armour plate rolling mill: both the largest of their kind in the world. Ten years later, Beardmores invented the Snowcat, which was built by their subsiduary Arrol-Johnston and sent to the Antarctic with Shackleton. In the run-up to the Great War, Beardmores built the world’s first proper aircraft carrier; during the war they made the 16 inch guns for HMS Nelson and Rodney, and the tracks for every single Allied tank; plus they built the R34 airship, the first lighter-than-air craft to make a transatlantic crossing. After the war, Beardmores turned to transport: they pioneered vans, lorries and buses with compression ignition (diesel) engines. Work began on planning Britain’s first fully-integrated steelworks, at Mossend. They were first in Britain with diesel-electric locomotives. Beardmores built our first stressed-skin metal aircraft, and with the Inflexible, they created the largest aircraft in the world. Some of these diversification attempts failed, so the outbreak of another war in 1939 came as a kind of salvation for Beardmores, even though they had lost Inchterf by that time.

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Inchterf could fire up to 45,000 rounds a year, and calibres up to 12 inches: but the Navy noted drily that guns heavier than 180mm tended to cause damage to civilian property in Milton of Campsie. After WW2, Inchterf helped to develop the 4.5 inch Mk8, which was the standard mount on post-war frigates and destroyers; it also worked on other calibres such as 6 inch and 3 inch, which were phased out as the Navy’s cruiser fleet was cut back. As Inchterf’s Naval work shrank, it gradually moved over to the Army, helping to develop the 76mm, 105mm, 120mm and 155mm guns designed at Enfield. Amongst once top secret programmes, the Establishment investigated boosted weapons, and also tested the solid rocket motors of the Sea Dart missile. Around 1995, the site at Inchterf was declared surplus to requirements, so it was decommissioned, then sold on after sitting empty for a time. Today parts of it are used by plant hire firms, builders’ merchants and car repairers – so it looks like a low density rubbish dump. But I like cranes, so I enjoyed having a poke around the NCK-Rapier “Ajax C75”, a 75 ton beast sitting rusting quietly on the range: it was operated by a piling company, and piling driving contractors liked NCK’s because they were robust, and had few hydraulic systems to get damaged by the constant vibration.

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20 – Inchterf in the 1920’s

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21 – from the top of the stop butts

As a postscript, although Inchterf is no longer used as a range, and Beardmores are no longer in business, their influence continues. Beardmores developed “Q1”, a high strength steel used for the hulls of nuclear submarines; and the modern MCW Metrocab taxi was also developed by them. However, the magazines at Inchterf are still used by an explosives company, so like Ardeer and Bishopton, they carry a severe “health warning” for the curious.

Visited with Cuban. :thumb

superkev
23-12-2009, 12:17 AM
Excellent explore!
Nice snaps :thumb

skin
23-12-2009, 01:09 AM
Excellent stuff - more here than I thought was left - great write up. :thumb

industry
23-12-2009, 11:14 AM
That's really interesting Mate and very nicely written as always - thanks for sharing it with us!

boxfrenzy
23-12-2009, 11:34 AM
That looks another good one. Nice to see some old vehicles too. Good job :thumb

Kevsy21
23-12-2009, 11:43 AM
good report and pics,very interesting reading,

wolfism
23-12-2009, 10:33 PM
Cheers all for your comments :)

@ flat-4: yep, it seems like the WD had a hand in it, though various folk have suggested that Vickers were partly responsible, and in fact they latterly bought the munitions part of Beardmores. All Britain's arms manufacturers ended up in the same boat anyhow: Armstrongs, Vickers, Whitworths, et al. became part of Hawker Siddeley, Marconi or BAC, then eventually merged into BAE Systems.

BB
24-12-2009, 02:32 PM
Top class stuff guys! :thumb

georgie
24-12-2009, 02:55 PM
top stuff m8 top write up aswell

numpty
04-02-2010, 07:34 PM
nice write-up and pictures chaps

I did a placement at a sister-site Eskmeals, near Ravenglass many moons ago. It seems like that one may be headed the same way if Mother Nature has her way QinetiQ Eskmeals threatened with closure (http://www.nwemail.co.uk/news/closure_threat_to_eskmeals_gun_range_1_625011)

It was a very interesting job. I did hear of a few interesting firings involving early reactive armour experiments, with foot-thick 1.5m square plates of armour plate flying around :ohmy

wolfism
04-02-2010, 10:28 PM
Interesting – I did a bit of internet research as I was writing this up, and came across the mention of Eskmeals. Bad news for the employees and local economy if it does shut, but it would def. be an fascinating place to look around, given the chance. :)