NHER 43598 (Monument record) - Site of World War Two air raid shelter at 6 Common Road, Southtown

May 2006. Norfolk NMP.
A probable air raid shelter dating to World War Two is visible on aerial photographs (S1), centred at TG 5235 0565. It is probably visible as an earthwork but could instead have been a bare structure. The site now lies in what appears to be the back garden of 6 Common Road, Southtown. It is not clear from the consulted aerial photographs and modern Ordnance Survey maps where the boundary lay between this property and 30 Alpha Road, which it backs on to. The shelter may therefore have been associated with either or even both of these houses. Either way, this location, together with its small size, suggests that it was a private shelter, intended for the use of a particular household. The earthwork mound probably covered a small semi-sunken or surface-level structure. It may have been an Anderson shelter, or a similar proprietary design. Further shelters may have stood in other gardens nearby but nothing is clear enough on the consulted aerial photographs to warrant mapping. The shelter is not visible on recent aerial photographs of the area, e.g. (S2), and it has presumably been levelled.
S. Tremlett (NMP), 8 May 2006.