Skidding a gun
A Mark X 9·2-Inch BL Gun being Skidded onto a Mark V Mounting.
The background indicates that this photo may well be of the Spur Battery

Plans for the single gun Spur Battery were drawn up in 1908. The Battery was to be independent of the Serapong 9·2-Inch Battery, but was to be armed with the same type of gun, a Mark X 9·2-Inch BL Gun on a Mark V 15° Barbette Mounting.

A Battery Command Post was built some 100 yards further up Mount Serapong. In this was a Mark 1 Depression Range Finder.

The Spur Battery remained in service until the 1930s when the newly up rated Fort Connaught with its three 9·2-Inch Mark X guns on 35° mountings came in to service, thus making the Spur Battery redundant. However, the Battery gained a new lease of life following Major General F.W. Barron’s visit to Singapore to review the defences. A two gun 6 Inch Battery would be built on the site of the Spur.

Plan of the underground area
A plan of the underground area

Much of the underground part of the Battery remains today, but what can be seen on the surface gives a very false impression of the battery as built. The Battery was much altered when it was later modified to accept a Mark VII 6 Inch BL Gun, and then with overhead cover. On the surface, recognisable elements are mainly the side walls, Some Ammunition Recesses (the large ones) and the Ammunition hoist.

A 9.2 inch gun
The Breech end of a 9·2 Inch BL Gun on a Mark V Mounting

Serapong Spur on Google Earth.

Serapong 6 Inch BL Battery