Sho, I took my first trip to North Queensferry by train the other day, mainly to have a look at the newly scaffolding-free Forth Bridge, but since I was in the neighbourhood I thought I'd have a nosey at the Second World War anti-aircraft gun emplacement just up the road from the station. Sadly (for me) it's not as accessible as it used to be, as it's now surrounded by recent houses, and the underground portions have been converted into offices. Good in the sense of making the place weathertight, but not much use for roaming around in.
Anyhow, it's still there:
Though one of the two gun sites is now a compost bin (complete with what look like pins for holding down the gun mount):
It's slightly off-putting though, and I kept expecting somebody to come along and complain:
Still, at least it's all being looked after:
In any case, this is the main attraction, and it's lovely to see it uncovered again:
I hadn't been up close in years (decades even?), and had slightly forgotten how monumental the thing is:
And how beautiful, in a bloody-big-engineering-thing kind of way:
Over 120 years old now, and the scale of the thing is still staggering:
Cheating slightly here as it's looking back from the south, and it's a bog standard view that must have been snapped tens of thousands of times over the years, but it's good to have it back:
All the world seems in tune on a Spring afternoon, when we're poisoning pigeons in the park.