NHER 43648 (Monument record) - Site of World War Two air raid shelter at 105 and 108 Wolseley Road, Southtown

May 2006. Norfolk NMP.
Two probable air raid shelters dating to World War Two are visible as an earthwork and structures on aerial photographs (S1), at TG 5192 0696 and TG 5192 0695. They lay in the back gardens of 105 and 108 Wolseley Road, Southtown. This location, together with their small size, suggests that they were private shelters, intended for the use of these particular households. The shelter at Number 108 is visible as a small, roughly rectangular, surface-level or semi-sunken structure, which can be distinguished from a normal outbuilding by its curved shape in profile. It may have been an Anderson shelter without its usual covering of earth (or with only a thin covering of material), or a similar proprietary design. The shelter at Number 105 is visible as an earthwork mound, which probably covered a small semi-sunken or surface-level structure. It appears to have had a façade at its east end which was taller and wider than the main body of the shelter; this is a feature typical of Anderson shelters. Further shelters may have lain in other, nearby gardens, such as that belonging to 109 Wolseley Road, but nothing was convincing or clear enough on the consulted aerial photographs to warrant mapping. Neither of the mapped shelters is visible on recent aerial photographs of the area, e.g. (S2), and they have presumably been levelled or otherwise removed.
S. Tremlett (NMP), 11 May 2006.