Cromarty Firth Dockyard

In 1904, the British Admiralty - with one eye on Germany - established a new naval base at Rosyth. Jackie Fisher, then First Sea Lord, strongly opposed the site as unsuitable thanks to its distance from the open sea and the Forth Bridge across the entrance. As a result of his opposition - and at the time he quite happily bragged about the fact - no substantial work took place for six years, and it was 1915 before the dockyard was ready to receive ships.

Fisher's preference was for the Humber or the Cromarty Firth, later settling definitely on the latter. Invergordon, the major town on the Cromarty Firth, later became a naval base, but on a rather smaller scale than the establishment at Rosyth.

What if Fisher got his way, and the new naval base and dockyard was established on the Cromarty Firth?
 

Nick P

Donor
Cromarty Firth is really the backend of nowhere and must get cut off rather badly in the heavy snows of 60-100 years ago, even today the main road and railway from Edinburgh can be closed. What this means for local workers is another thing but maybe delays in work.

There are knock-on effects because there's very little industry in the area to support major ship maintenance and ship building. All the steel, iron, wood and fittings will have to be brought that little bit further thus adding to the costs.

You'd see a huge increase in the local population as more civilian shipworkers and builders move to be near the new jobs. Alness and Invergordon will double in size. The railway from Edinburgh is mostly single track which adds time to train journeys there.

The airfields at Lossiemouth, Kinross, Fearn, Tain and Evanton will take on a greater air defence role to protect the main East Coast RN base. The entrance the Firth is narrow and easily blocked by a concerted mine laying effort but this geological feature can be used to make life tricky for enemy submarine attacks.

Without Rosyth this could mean that the Royal Navy invest more in Cromarty ensuring its survival to the current day, though probably with more work being for the oil rigs than the destroyers!
 
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