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MHG30371 - Loch Leven

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Full Description

200ft OD On a low knoll on steep S side of L Leven recorded by R C Callander on 5 May 1996 whilst en route by car from Edinburgh to Mallaig for Knoydart. About 24 miles west of Kinlochleven, on the road along the south side of Loch Leven from Glencoe village to Kinlochleven, is the ruin of a 1939/45 War pillbox.
Located to the east of the Allt Gleann a Chaolais on the north side of the present-day road, it is built into a low knoll about 200 feet (61m) up the steep side of the loch. The south side is bounded by a steep rock face.
The situation of the structure, when manned could have provided a field of fire westwards, covering the road which then ran from Glencoe village (on approximately the same line as the present road). Possibly it was also intended to cover the road from Kinlochleven and the upper reaches of Loch Leven.
Measuring overall 3.5m E/W by 3.0m transversely it was brick built with a flat concrete roof. The south wall still stands to 1m externally but the other walls barely exist, having been formed of the "slabs" of brick walling lying around the area of the structure. The concrete roof lies in two parts, one tilted northwards one edge on the upstanding wall, the other tilted eastwards one edge on the remains of the west wall. Earth is banked against the outer side of the south wall and extends as banks to east and west. To the east it extends for 2.5m and is about 1.0m high and 1.0m thick and to the west for 1.5m and is about 1.0m high and 1.5m thick.
These banks possibly "protected" entrances as there is evidence of an entrance at the south end of the west wall and a similar entrance may have existed at the south end of the east wall. Entry to the interior, which is filled with all manner of domestic rubbish, is impossible but it was possible to measure the height of the south wall and ascertain that the internal height was at least 1.5m.
In the bottom of a shallow "col" some 7m to the west of the structure and 4m below it is an enclosure 3.0m E/W by 3.5m transversely over turf covered stony banks up to 0.5m high and 0.5m thick which may have been associated with the structure. Also possibly associated with the structure is a shallow trench-like ditch along the edge of the "apron" of the ground to the north of the structure.
Prints taken looking SSW and SE toward the structure.
Prints sent with report to John Guy, Defence of Britain Project on 16.5.96
REF No RCC96/16 Cont'd.
Info from R C Callander's record card, photos & sketch also from R C Callander. A M Fox, Highland Council, 08.01.02

Pillbox notified by R C Callander, Edinburgh. Details with Defence of Britain Project.
A M Fox, Highland Council, 13.12.01.

Martin Briscoe submitted photographs of this site in February 2011. He had a look at this site after seeing it on the postwar aerial photographs whilst looking for the decoy site control bunker. He suggests that there could have been another brick structure behind the pillbox but it could just be the way that the rubble has been scattered on demolition / collapse. <1>

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Location

Grid reference	Centred NN 1630 6150 (10m by 10m) (2 map features)
Map sheet	NN16SE
Civil Parish	LISMORE AND APPIN
Geographical Area	LOCHABER

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