NHER 42353 (Monument record) - Site of World War Two anti invasion defences at Southtown

February 2006. Norfolk NMP.
A group of World War Two anti invasion defences is visible as extant buildings, structures and earthworks on aerial photographs (S1)-(S3), centred at TG 5229 0598. They appear to have been sited to protect a group of trackways and crossing points over drains which formerly lay to the north of Queen Anne’s Road, between Suffolk Road and Southtown Road. These are depicted on the Ordnance Survey 2nd edition 25 inch map (S4) but have since been built over. At TG 5229 0595, four anti tank cubes formed a road block at a bridge where a trackway crossed a drain. This was overlooked by a Type 24 pillbox located behind a hedge approximately 8m to its northeast. The pillbox was camouflaged as a shed but is visible without its disguise on later aerial photographs, see (S3). Further to the north, at TG 5229 0600, a spigot mortar emplacement is visible. This may have covered both the road block to its south (the one described above) and a second barrier 140m to the northwest, recorded as part of NHER 43304.

The anti tank blocks were removed by August 1945 (S5), by which time the spigot mortar emplacement had also either been removed or was hidden from view. The area has since been levelled and built over and there is no evidence on the most recent consulted aerial photographs (S6) that any part of the defences still survives.
S. Tremlett (NMP), 16 February 2006.