Ghost Town: Abandoned Scotland: Torpedo Testing Station

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Original post: Torpedo Testing Station - Arrochar - May 2011.

For an explore in May you’d expect, even in Scotland, that the weather would be fairly pleasant, but as always the weather loves to make our explores that slightly more interesting. The Torpedo Testing Station sits on the northern banks of Loch Long near to Arrochar and has long been left to rot by the military. 100 years old this year the station was closed in the 1980s. The place has had a colourful history, in 1915 a spy Augusto Alfredo Roggen was caught and hanged at the tower of London for taking photographs here...

Here is an old map of the site, where sadly several of the buildings have since been demolished:

The Torpedo Testing Station can easily be missed when driving along the main road after Arrochar what with all the trees and shrubbery left to grow around it. There is a small access road which is where we parked up and went for a walk.

The main part of the station was set on fire with some of the damage visible here.

Most of the main pier is a shell housing nothing but broken windows and the remnants of what went before.

In this shot the weather actually looks quite welcome however this was just one of the brief dry spells when the horizontal rain let off for a few minutes before continuing its battering of the old station.

The old rails used to transport the torpedoes around the station are still set into the ground of most parts of it. Here you can see the doorways leading to the launching area, which unfortunately was not accessible for us due to the tide and the welded closed doors.

The inaccessible part of the station.

Next to the main part of the station was this slip way, complete with abandoned boat. Although this boat was possibly not used by the military.

Surprisingly we found what was left of the boat’s engine on the main road a good distance away.

The other side of those doors.

Around the station are various structures although we couldn’t access them either. Big sad face.

There were also various houses no doubt used to home some of the staff, caretakers or security for the place over the years. Although this place was closed in the 1980′s some of the houses still had satellite dishes attached to them.