NHER 27570 (Monument record) - World War Two road block across Burgh Road, Gorleston-on-Sea

February 2006. Norfolk NMP.
A World War Two road block is visible as a group of structures and marks on the road surface on aerial photographs taken in 1944 (S1)-(S3), between TG 5194 0523 and TG 5194 0520. The marks have been mapped by extent, not individually. This substantial barrier, which lay across Burgh Road, would have acted as an anti invasion defence and appears to have been designed to impede tanks. It consisted of a double row of anti tank cubes, arranged side by side and extending up to the houses on each side of the road: Number 90 to the north and Number 81 to the south. At the centre was a gap of approximately 5m, within which marks are visible on the road surface. These probably represent sockets intended to take anti tank vertical rails or pins. By August 1945 (S4) the cubes had been removed. Patches of resurfacing on the road, visible on the same aerial photographs, form a pattern which probably reflects the location of the sockets. The pattern is comparable to that depicted in a bibliographic source illustrating a layout of anti tank bent pins (S5).
S. Tremlett (NMP), 15 February 2006