NHER 43566 (Monument record) - Site of probable World War Two air raid shelters at 30, 31 and 42 Town Wall Road

May 2006. Norfolk NMP.
Three probable air raid shelters dating to World War Two are visible as earthworks and a structure on aerial photographs (S1), between TG 5248 0816 and TG 5253 0816. They lay in the back gardens of 30, 31 and 42 Town Wall Road. This location, together with their small size, suggests that they were private shelters, intended for the use of these particular households. They may have been Anderson shelters, or similar proprietary designs. The shelters at Number 30 and Number 31 are visible as earthwork mounds, each of which probably covered a small semi-sunken or surface-level structure. Judging by the shape of the mound at Number 30, the underlying structure probably had a curved shape in profile. Less detail is visible of the shelter at Number 31, as it is partially obscured by shadows on the consulted aerial photographs and also appears to have been thickly covered with vegetation or similar material. The shelter at Number 42 is visible as a small, rectangular, surface-level or semi-sunken structure, which is distinguished from a normal outbuilding by its curved shape in profile. At each end it had a flat, vertical façade which was taller and wider than the main body of the shelter. This is a feature typical of Anderson shelters and the structure may have been one without its usual covering of earth. Further shelters may have lain in other gardens nearby, but nothing was convincing or clear enough on the consulted aerial photographs to warrant mapping. None of the mapped shelters is visible on more recent aerial photographs of the site, for example (S2), and they were presumably levelled at some time after the end of the war.
S. Tremlett (NMP), 17 May 2006.