NHER 43687 (Monument record) - Site of probable World War Two air raid shelters on Chaucer Road

May 2006. Norfolk NMP.
Sixteen probable air raid shelters dating to World War Two are visible as earthworks and structures on aerial photographs (S1), between TG 5292 0980 and TG 5291 0958. The shelters lay in the back gardens of houses along Chaucer Road. This location, together with their small size, suggests that they were private shelters, each intended for the use of a particular household. Most are visible as earthwork mounds, each of which probably covered a small semi-sunken or surface-level structure. The structure itself is partially visible in some cases, as with the mound at Number 81. Judging by the shape of the mounds, many of the underlying structures probably had a curved shape in profile, often with a flat, vertical façade at one or both ends. They may have been Anderson shelters, or similar proprietary designs. Others are visible as small, rectangular, surface-level or semi-sunken structures, which are distinguished from ordinary outbuildings by their curved shape in profile. These also may have been Anderson shelters, but without their usual covering of earth. Those with facades that were higher and wider then the main body of the shelter, as at Number 27 and Number 59 (where part of an earth covering remains), were almost certainly Andersons, as this is a characteristic feature of such shelters. Some of the mounds, such as that at Number 53, incorporated structural elements that may have revetted and protected their entrances. In the case of the mound at Number 41 it is difficult to distinguish between those parts that are structural and those that are formed of earth (it has been mapped as an earthwork). Further shelters may have lain in other gardens along this street, such as those belonging to Numbers 63 and 65, but nothing was convincing or clear enough on the consulted aerial photographs to warrant mapping. There is no evidence on more recent aerial photographs of the site, e.g. (S2), that any element of the mapped shelters still survives above ground.
S. Tremlett (NMP), 23 May 2006.