Royal Observer Corps Monitoring Post, Barrhead

Image: © Lairich Rig Taken: 2 May 2016

For related pictures, click on the end-note title. For another contributor's earlier picture, see Image This structure is a relic of the Cold War era (see the end-note). The access hatch is on the right. Mounted on top of the louvred block (which was a ventilation shaft) that is in front of the access hatch is something shaped like a squat mushroom; this is the GZI mount, which supported the Ground Zero Indicator: it is shown in close-up in Image That instrument had photosensitive paper and pinholes, and functioned rather like a sunshine recorder, but its function was to record the direction and elevation of nuclear blasts. Some separate structures are visible on the left. In front is the small FSM mount: Image Behind it is another ventilation shaft: Image The earlier picture by another contributor (Image) was taken when the vegetation in the area on the left was shorter, and it shows all of the structures at this site very clearly. In that picture, a dark cylindrical object can be seen projecting from the left-hand side of the second ventilation shaft; that cylindrical object was the cover for a radio aerial. I show it in close-up in another picture: Image Its presence here indicates that Barrhead was a master post (the ROC posts were grouped in clusters, with one "master post" per cluster). For a more distant view, showing the site in context, see Image

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