SMR 1137 / NS 8603 7314
This underground post was built in the late 1950s on Allan’s Hill (Hillhead) by the Royal Observer Corps on the site of a Second World War aeroplane observation post and was opened in May 1961. It is of the standard design, entered down a steel ladder in a shaft 4.2m deep. At the bottom of the shaft are two doors; one giving entry to a chemical closet, the other into the monitoring room 4.5 x 2.3m. At the far end of the monitoring room is an iron framed bed with an orange plastic covered mattress. Two felt blankets (in an advanced state of decay) lie on the mattress still in their brown paper wrappers. In the corners above the bed are small shelves. Also in this room is a folding chair (film director style), a small cupboard containing pots and a kettle, a small metal filing cabinet, and two wooden benches that are rather hotch-potch in character. The door to the chemical closet has a sign saying that there was also a shower there. At the foot of the shaft is a sump covered by a metal grill. A hand operated pump on the wall at the side emptied this periodically.
The post was operational until September 1991. Its function was to monitor nuclear bomb explosions and the drift of fallout. For this reason they were usually built in clusters over a small geographical area to permit the triangulation of plots – the others in the Falkirk area being at the Drove Loan in Bonnybridge and the golf course on Erngath Hill above Bo’ness. They were manned by local volunteers, which at Slamannan included the post mistress. The results were reported to Protected Group HQs and Sector HQs. In all, some 875 were built.
The monitoring room was being used by children for nefarious activities in September 1999 and so the hatch was welded closed. It was subsequently wrenched off and as a result the underground chamber and much of the shaft are flooded.
Falkirk Local History Society 