NHER 27541 (Monument record) - World War Two site

September 2005. Norfolk NMP.
A World War Two site is visible on aerial photographs (S1 to S5), centred at TG 5306 0555. Its exact function is not clear, but the location of two large air raid shelters at a distance from residential housing and the presence of a mast are suggestive of military activity.

On the earliest consulted photographs of the site, taken in 1940 to 1941 (S1 to S2), a large semi sunken air raid shelter is visible as an approximately rectangular mound at TG 5304 0556. Irregularities in the outline of the mound mark the presence of entrances. Stairs which led down into the shelter are visible on later aerial photographs of the site (S4), for example, at TG 5303 0555, but may originally have been at least partially covered by the mound and consequently have not been mapped. A second shelter lay immediately to the south of that described above. In this case, the shelter appears to have been almost entirely sunken, its presence marked by three entrances and two ventilation shafts, centred around TG 5304 0554. These are clearly visible on aerial photographs taken in 1945 (S4), but the shelter could have been in existence by 1940/1941 (S1 to S2). To the east, at approximately TG 5308 0557, is a mast, which stands on a concrete plinth. This was constructed after February 1941 (S2) but before March 1944 (S5). The function of the mast is not known, but it could feasibly be associated with the use of Nelson’s Monument, 20m to the southwest of the site, as a signal station (see NHER 4302).

Various buildings are also visible at the site, but these are indistinguishable from industrial buildings visible in the surrounding area and are as likely to relate to the pre War use of the site as to military activity. Other signs of activity at the site consist of disturbed ground and the temporary presence of vehicles (for example, on S3), all of which were too transient to map. The northern side of the site was already a building site by 1945 (S4) and the entire area has now been built over, the wartime features presumably having been levelled if not totally destroyed.
S. Tremlett (NMP), 21 September 2005.