NHER 43615 (Monument record) - Site of World War Two bomb crater off Boundary Road, Southtown

May 2006. Norfolk NMP.
A probable World War Two bomb crater is visible as an earthwork on aerial photographs (S1)-(S2), centred at TG 5231 0616. The crater does not appear to be a fresh earthwork on the earliest consulted photographs of the site (S1), when it was already overgrown with vegetation and filled with water. This suggests that it was probably created several months, or even years, earlier. It may even have been a pond, rather than a crater, but the fact that it encroached upon a land boundary suggests that it is more likely to have been created by a bomb. The intended target may have been part of Great Yarmouth’s transport network, or one of the many military or industrial sites in the vicinity. The foundations of a number of buildings are visible nearby; it is not clear whether these structures were damaged by the bomb and the sites subsequently cleared, or whether they were only partially built at the start of the war. Aerial photographs taken more recently (S3) and modern Ordnance Survey maps demonstrate that the site has now been levelled and partially built over.
S. Tremlett (NMP), 5 May 2006.