Kyloe Crag Auxiliary Unit and OB by CART member Stephen Lewins.

This is another of the Northumberland Auxiliary Unit O.B.s. It is located in some woodland near the rocky outcrop at Kyloe Crag in the Kyloe Hills between the small settlement of Buckton and Fenwick. The site is accessible by a forestry track, there is a lot of fern ground cover making it difficult to locate.

Follow the road/track from the Fenwick side of Buckton Moor into the forest. There are the remains of an Iron Age fort within the woods, passing this area heading toward the craggy outcrop the O.B. is well hidden in the undergrowth.

This O.B. caused a lot of mail to be sent back and forth between Major Griffiths 184th Tunnelling Coy R.E. and the Command in Harton, South Shields and HQ Darlington. The ground was too hard to tunnel at the site chosen by Officer in C. Capt. A Quayle, Auxiliary Units Northumberland. The site is on Whinstone rock which required explosives to blast a hole in the ground for the shelter and the bolt hole tunnels. This supply of explosives was not forthcoming nor was the transport or timber required by 184th Tunnelling Coy R.E. Major Griffiths asked to change the site but Capt. Gough O/c Aux. Units Northumberland (Capt. Quayles successor) would not change the orders, a couple of alternatives were looked at but the ground was the same so the original site was used and the required materials were sent.

The O.B. is of the usual “elephant” shelter design but with an extra trap door entrance over the store in the bolt hole tunnel similar to the O.B. at West Fallodon. It is in a poor state and in general collapse condition.

WW2 map ref; qU548594 modern NU052 387

Patrol members (as far as known)

  A. Black
  W. Black
  J. Nesbit
  G. Reavley
  D.S. Telfer
  R. Robinson

(Images and content provided by Stephen Lewins.)