Archaeology
Exploring the site of a former wartime installation can be most revealing and one such example comes from the actual location of the GPO Marconi Adcock HF/DF underground cabin at Gilnahirk, installed 1939 / 1940. On the occasion in question the farmer of the land was ploughing his field, a field that had been used only for grazing and growing both before the installation of the underground cabin and after the complete removal of the underground cabin, four telegraph poles and the crockery ducting linking the site to the Post Office telephone network on the Gilnahirk Road in 1968. I was informed that during the operation of the underground cabin (1940 - 1968) the surrounding area in the same field could only be used from grazing sheep. Despite the disturbance of the ground during the removal operation in 1968 nothing unusual was found. Then sixty odds years on from the wartime installation a little brown bottle with the embossed letters GPO comes to the surface and thankfully the farmer spots it from the seat of his tractor. Having recovered the bottle it is in mint condition, neither a chip nor a scratch, like new. Thankfully the farmer was aware of my interest in the former wartime site and made contact. We pondered its purpose, was it for oil, ink or some other liquid. The cork stopper was missing and there was no smell or residual evidence within the bottle so if anyone can tell me more I would be delighted to hear from them. Thank you.
I have been around quite a few sites taking photographs.
Around Lockdown, Stan sent me a WW1 RN NID memo / letter that mentioned a site at Kilmuir on Skye. I could not find anything else about it and asked at the Skye Archive, a History Professor on Skye and various others but nothing. Obvious no one alive who would remember it but I thought that perhaps stories could have remain in local memories of some mysterious secret activity.
I found there was a file in the Marconi Archive and during Lockdown the Bodleian was not charging for copies of files. They sent me a copy of a large about the place which showed the location.
So I had a drive up, not expecting to find anything, I found a lump of concrete with various pieces of steel tubing in it.
By the way, Historic Environment Scotland have an excellent site called CANMORE which gives access to the records and (after registering) you can add images and text to the records. They are easy to contact to request sites should be added.
In the Highlands we have probably the best Historic Environment Record and again you can add text and images to their records.
Wales have ARCHWILIO
And Northern Ireland have the Defence Heritage Project
Not the same as Listing or Scheduling but it makes people like the Planning Dept aware of sites though did not help with Hush-Hush! A WWII site doing microwave path tests around the Irish Sea.
Martin