NHER 42501 (Monument record) - Probable World War Two searchlight emplacement at the former site of Marsh Farm

February 2006. Norfolk NMP.
A World War Two military site is visible as extant structures, buildings, earthworks and vegetation patterns on aerial photographs (S1)-(S4), centred at TG 5110 0913. It is similar to a site at Somerton (NHER 42471) which was identified by Roger Thomas (English Heritage) as a late form of searchlight battery. These utilised a radar controlled 150mm projector mounted on a wheeled trailer. The site was located at a farm, named Marsh Farm on the Ordnance Survey 2nd edition map (S5), and may have utilised some of the farm buildings. The farm has since been demolished.

The site comprised a number of different elements. A structure of indeterminate shape at TG 5113 0914, which appears to have been surrounded by a square fence or other type of barrier, was probably the searchlight. It was surrounded by an area of uncultivated ground, the extent of which has been mapped. This was visible as a change in vegetation; no physical barrier could be made out on the consulted aerial photographs. Within this area tracks led from the searchlight to unidentified structures at TG 5113 0917 (a concrete pad or plinth is visible here in 1946 but has not been mapped by the NMP) and TG 5112 0911; a further structure lay to the east, at TG 5118 0913. A ‘V’-shaped feature at TG 5109 0915 may have been a slit trench, and perhaps served as an air raid shelter. Two possible structures visible within an area of uncultivated land at TG 5108 0912 in July 1944 (S2) may have been tents. Various huts at the site probably provided accommodation and domestic facilities for the garrison and served as an operations block. A line of four huts with pitched roofs is visible between TG 5107 0917 and TG 5107 0913. What appears to have been a concrete or masonry path runs down the west side of three of these huts, ending at a wider surfaced area at its north end. Two flat-roofed structures are visible to the northeast (at TG 5108 0918) and south (at TG 5107 0911). Possible curved-profile structures at TG 5103 0908 and TG 5106 0908 could instead have been haystacks. Further military structures may have been located around Marsh Farm but they cannot be distinguished from non-military features and consequently have not been mapped by the NMP.

The site had been almost entirely dismantled by July 1946 (S4). No traces of the battery have been identified on more recent aerial photographs of the site.
S. Tremlett (NMP), 9 February 2006.