NHER 34545 (Monument record) - World War Two searchlight battery

June 1946.
RAF aerial photography (S1) shows single circular enclosure with raised outline and entrance to south. Probably a searchlight position, very slight traces of other features to south.
B. Cushion (NLA) 9 June 1999.

December 2005. Norfolk NMP.
A World War Two searchlight battery is visible on aerial photographs (S1-S3). This site is centred on TG 4989 0531 and is more extensive than previous mapping had indicated. The earliest aerial photographs showing this searchlight battery date to July 1944 (S2) and show that the site was out of use by that date. At that time two earth-banked searchlight emplacements were present. These were penannular in form and had an internal diameter of 10m. The northernmost of these, located at TG 4988 0542, was the one that had previously been identified (See B. Cushion above). The second emplacement was located 60m to the south at TG 4988 0535. Between these two emplacements was a third circular area with a diameter of approximately 12m. It appears to have been another type of emplacement or equipment base without a surrounding bank. It is linked to the southern searchlight emplacement by a dark linear mark, possibly indicating a cable trench. A structure was located within a small earth-banked emplacement immediately to the southeast of the southern emplacement.

Four rectangular huts were present along the western side of the site. Rectangular marks in the eastern part of the site probably relate to further buildings that had been removed by July 1944. A ring ditch cropmark is present immediately to the south of the main group of structures at TG 4988 0530. This ring ditch had a diameter of 12m and lay directly in line with the searchlight emplacements. It is likely that it relates to a structure at the battery site that had been completely removed by 1944. Further to the south were two additional structures associated with the searchlight battery. A possible spigot mortar emplacement was located on the northern side of Market Road at TG 49905 05175. An unidentified circular structure, with a diameter of approximately 2.5m, was located in the hedgerow to its north at TG 49880 05215. It is possible that it was a small pillbox or gun emplacement. By April 1946 (S3) the buildings had been removed and some of the earthworks levelled. By June 1946 only the northern of the two searchlight emplacements was clearly visible as an earthwork (S1). The site had been completely cleared and was under arable cultivation by October 1964 (S4).
J. Albone (NMP), 14 December 2005