NHER 27407 (Monument record) - Site of probable World War Two air raid shelters at Grenville Place and on Perebrown Avenue

May 2006. Norfolk NMP.
Six probable air raid shelters dating to World War Two are visible as earthworks and structures on aerial photographs taken in 1945 (S1), centred around TG 5268 0958. At least one of the shelters (that to the north of 1/3 Grenville Place) could have been in existence by February 1941, when it may just be visible as a small earthwork (S2). The shelters lay in the gardens of houses along Grenville Place and Perebrown Avenue. This location, together with their small size, suggests that they were private shelters, each intended for the use of a particular household. Most are visible as earthwork mounds, each of which probably covered a small semi-sunken or surface-level structure. Judging by the shape of the mounds, many of the underlying structures probably had a curved shape in profile, often with a flat, vertical façade at one or both ends. They may have been Anderson shelters, or similar proprietary designs. The shelter at 22 Perebrown Avenue, which at its west end had a façade that was higher and wider than the mound itself, was almost certainly an Anderson. The mound to the north of 1/3 Grenville Place appears to have had an entrance at each end. In contrast to the mounds, the shelter at 20 Perebrown Avenue is visible as a small, rectangular, surface-level or semi-sunken structure, which is distinguished from an ordinary outbuilding by its curved shape in profile. This may have been an Anderson shelter without its usual covering of earth. Further shelters may have lain in other gardens nearby, such as that belonging to 38/40 Grenville Place, but nothing was convincing or clear enough on the consulted aerial photographs to warrant mapping. None of the mapped shelters is visible on more recent aerial photographs of the site, e.g. (S3), and they have presumably been levelled.
S. Tremlett (NMP), 23 May 2006.