NHER 27697 (Monument) - Site of World War Two defences

September 2005. Norfolk NMP.
World War Two defences are visible on aerial photographs (S1) to (S5), laid out along fish wharf at Great Yarmouth between TG 5256 0609 and TG 5270 0555. This area was under naval control during the war (S6) and the fences, barbed wire and structures mapped by the NMP seem likely to have been associated with this military control. It should be noted that the structures relating to military activity could only be distinguished from civil structures at the site with great difficulty, and consequently some military installations may not have been mapped while some of the mapped features may not have had a military or defensive function.

The main element of the site consists of a line of barbed wire and fencing which extended from The Dolphin public house, where there was a gate across the road, southwards to the Lower Ferry, (both shown on the Ordnance Survey 2nd edition map (S7)). This line of fencing is only intermittently visible and it may be partially obscured by the surrounding buildings. Two small concrete structures are visible at the northern end of the site (at TG 5256 0609 and TG 5253 0606). These were constructed after February 1941 (S2) and demolished before April 1946 (S8) and were therefore almost certainly of military origin. The building near the gate might have acted as a guard house or sentry box. To the south (at TG 5255 0595) another concrete building is visible. It too was constructed after February 1941 (S2) but it remained standing for some years after the war (see (S9) to (S10) for example). A small square building with an ancillary structure on its southwest side stood further to the south (at TG 5266 0567). This has the appearance of being newly constructed on aerial photographs taken in 1940 to 1941 (S1) to (S2) and may have been a pillbox or similar defensive structure. The fact that it remained standing for some years after the end of the war, however, (see (S9)-(S10) for example), and its similarity to a pre war building visible 140m to the south (at TG 5272 0554) suggests that it could have been civilian rather than military in origin.

There is no evidence on more recent aerial photographs that any of the features described above now survive as upstanding structures.
S. Tremlett (NMP), 29 September 2005.