By Gordon Cairns

By Gordon Cairns

For decades, locals and tourists visiting a quiet Scottish island have been baffled at finding a large rusting gun barrel and rim of a carriage wheel sticking out of the ground next to a stone wall by the edge of the sea.

Such is the intrigue, the site now has its own TripAdvisor page where mystified reviewers describe being amazed at coming across a hidden cannon in a field in the town of Millport on Cumbrae in the Firth of Clyde.

Finally, the story of how the gun, and its sister, arrived on the island before being unceremoniously dumped by the locals can be revealed.

One hundred years ago, the town was awarded two German howitzers in recognition of the sacrifices the islanders had made during the First World War, where 42 men died from a population of just under 1,600. Everyone would have known at least someone who had perished during the conflict.

The imposing weapons arrived on a bleak January morning in 1920 but remained at the harbour as winter turned into spring, while the council debated where to put them.

The trouble was, no-one wanted a reminder of a conflict where so many had been slaughtered.

Military archaeologist Professor Tony Pollard explains that the townsfolk of Millport were not alone in their reluctance to welcome weapons which had until recently been targeting their loved ones. A scheme to hand out weapons captured from the Germans had began in 1915 after the Battle of Hooge and was initially popular as it showed the war was going well, evidenced by the large collection of war trophies taken from the enemy. By the end of the war, the War Trophies Committee had collected 100,000 items, ranging from tanks down to machine guns.

But opinions had altered by 1920. “By the time we get to the end of the war, when Millport gets two of these items, the mood has changed,” said Pollard. “The war is over and people are sick of it.

“Losses had mounted up with whole communities destroyed and the last thing people want is a huge chunk of metal on the village green which reminds them of the brutality of the industrial slaughter made real on their front doorstep.”

The howitzer was a particularly poor choice to be displayed in a civilian area such as Millport, as these weapons were used to bomb trenches, where the majority of casualties occurred. He added: “People weren’t in favour of them and felt they were being foisted on them and that’s what happened in Millport.”

But the town did want to honour its dead. After it had its own war memorial erected in 1922, a litter bin attached to the railings was removed as it was seen as disrespectful.

The antagonism towards the guns was captured by the anonymous diarist of the Largs and Millport Weekly News writing 100 years ago. The contributor variously hoped that the guns could be lost at sea, stolen, or sent to Edinburgh to replace a missing pair.

As the months wore on and the weapons started to rust on the harbour, the clearly exasperated commentator wrote: “We have decided to start a competition in this paper. The question set is ‘What is the best thing to be done with the unwanted junk?’ For the best answer, the prize will be one of the German guns and for the second best answer, the other gun.”

Even in the council chamber, councillors argued that the people did not want the two war trophies and refused to agree to paying £7 transportation fees for the guns. The provost eventually had to pay the money out of his own pocket before the cannons were allowed to be moved from the harbour to West Bay Park on the shore of the town.

Millport was not the only Scottish town which wanted to snub the spoils of war. Dornoch in Sutherland received a gun similar to those in Millport, and that was dumped in a pond on the golf course by local young men. It was dredged up in 1991 but, still unwanted, it was taken away for scrap. Millport’s neighbouring town of Largs sent the machine gun it had been awarded back as it was in such bad condition.

And in a famous Neil Munro short story, The Captured Cannon, The Vital Spark puffer tries to get rid of an enemy gun, before jettisoning it at sea. One character says: “A German cannon’s worse than a drunken reputation, ye cannae get rid of it.”

Millport’s German cannons had a more unusual fate than being dumped in the Irish Sea or a pond. After the guns had been wheeled to the park, a children’s play area had sprung up around them during the 1920s. But even by the end of the decade they hadn’t been accepted.

In 1929, at a council meeting, war veteran Thomas Freebairn asked that children playing in the park shouldn’t have to see them. He demanded that “the gun reminders of the Great War be removed from the West Bay Park and put out of sight of rising generations”. Perhaps Freebairn, who had a six-year-old son, didn’t want his only child to be confronted with the weapons of war each time he played on the swings.

Freebairn’s motion was passed and the guns were removed, but he couldn’t protect his son from the forthcoming war. Charles Freebairn enlisted in 1939, although thankfully he survived the conflict.

It was not recorded where the guns went, but there was a local dump at the bottom of the park and one of the cannons must have been dragged there before the sea wall was built.

Pollard is not sure where the other gun ended up: “The stories are they were buried under a sea wall where you can only see one of them,” he said. “I’ve also heard the other one has been dumped at sea, but I don’t know what the truth of that is.”

Ironically, the attempt to get rid of the gun by burying it under a wall has made it one of the few surviving weapons of this type, due to their unpopularity and then the need for metal before the Second World War.

Pollard explained: “They are rare across the world. Over time, due to changes in attitudes and then their value as scrap metal, they slowly disappeared. There are now very few examples in the UK.”

He has been involved in a number of initiatives over the years to excavate the gun and possibly find the other underneath the wall although nothing has come of this yet. He said: “The logistics are complicated as you would have to remove a part of the sea wall. It’s degraded in the time I have seen it over the last 10 years so it would be a real job of work to actually stabilise it so that people would want to have it on display. All of these issues would need to be considered.”

However, he added: “If everything was in place with the enthusiasm and the money to do it, I would be there with my trowel in hand.”

Pollard believes if the guns were excavated and restored they could act as a focal point for memorialising and educating young people about the war: “Excavation could bring the gun back into service again to serve its function, not only as a memorial but as a point of reference to create interest in the war.”

Scott Ferris, who owns the island’s popular Mapes cycle hire shop, is in two minds whether uncovering the cannon would be the best option, as it is already a tourist attraction in its own right.

“I think it’s lovely where it is,” he said. “The cannon in the wall has its own TripAdvisor page and it’s a geocaching point on the island. If you put your hand down the barrel there’s a special box you can take out.”

He suggested that there wasn’t be a logical place to put it as it wouldn’t fit in with the style of the town’s main building: “It’s not very in tune with the Victorian style of the Garrison – a First World War cannon might not be fitting.”

However, he does believe there could be a value in retrieving and restoring the cannons: “Having them out sitting there looking pristine somewhere in the town would be another wee attraction point for the island.”