Site Records

SiteName: Grain Tower Battery

Grain
Kent
TQ89817603

Sub Brit site visit May 1996

From the kitchen a flight of steps leads up to the Gun Floor with a walkway and a further two sets of steps to the two gun emplacements. Only the south west set of steps and the south gun emplacement (No. 1 gun) survive. The concrete drum emplacement retains its holdfast of six bolts equally spaced around a depressed centre for mounting the gun pedestal. Around the base of the emplacement are three ready-use ammunition lockers, one for cartridges and two for shells. Both 4.7" guns were removed in February 1929.

Further modifications to the tower were made in July 1940 when a twin 6-pounder QF gun was installed. This was to fire on the high speed German 'E' and 'S' motor torpedo boats and Grain was one of the first sites to employ one of these recently developed guns. The gun had a very high rate of fire (60 - 120 rounds per minute) and was electrically powered with a search light mounting and director tower. The generator house was located on shore and connected to the tower by cables.

There was no separate cartridge store so this room was put to other uses. The shell store became the new magazine and the barrack room became an ammunition handling area housing an electrically powered ammunition lift that was required for the rapid an uninterrupted supply of ammunition. This still survives in good condition. The ammunition was passed from the magazine through a steel door to the lift which ran in an open shaft delivering ammunition to the rear of the gun emplacement.

The new emplacement involved extensive alterations to the Gun Floor and Upper Shelter Level around the northern 4.7" emplacement which was demolished at this time. The gun was housed in a new reinforced concrete emplacement which still survives in good condition with its holdfast bolts set into the pit. A set of rails run round the edge of the emplacement to the rear of the gun for the ammunition trolleys. There are five ready-use ammunition lockers in the base of the gun pit and the top of the ammunition lift is located at the rear of the emplacement, five feet below the level of the pit.

The Battery Observation Post (BOP) is located in a 4 storey reinforced concrete tower. This would normally be a two storey structure with the gun-director and search-light director rising from the rear of the gun position. The ground floor room is reached by a set of steps from the upper shelter level. The other floors are reached by external steps with a handrail and a small landing at each level. Access to all the rooms is through an armoured door. The door to the searchlight-director room has been removed. The gun-direction position above retains its door and a concrete pillar in the centre where the rangefinder and director equipment was mounted. Both rooms still retain their armoured shutters.

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