NHER 43690 (Monument record) - Sites of probable World War Two air raid shelters on Tennyson Road, Chaucer Road and Byron Road

May 2006. Norfolk NMP.
Nineteen probable air raid shelters dating to World War Two are visible as earthworks and structures on aerial photographs taken in 1945 (S1), between TG 5298 0977 and TG 5298 0958. A site where a twentieth shelter may have already been removed is also visible as earthworks at TG 5299 0963 (the garden of 21 Byron Road). The shelters lay in the back gardens of houses along Chaucer, Tennyson and Byron Roads. 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 at 28 Chaucer Road. 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 façades that were higher and wider than the main body of the shelter, as at 33 Byron Road (where part of an earth covering remains) and 46 Chaucer Road, were almost certainly Andersons, as this is a characteristic feature of such shelters. Some of the mounds, such as those at 24, 42 and 54 Chaucer Road, incorporated structural elements or earthen blast walls that may have revetted and protected their entrances. The shelter at 58 Chaucer Road is unusual; it was almost certainly not an Anderson shelter but appears to have been a more substantial construction of masonry or concrete, with an opening at its west end.

Further shelters may have lain in other gardens along these streets, such as those belonging to 27, 41 or 43 Byron Road, but nothing was convincing or clear enough on the consulted aerial photographs to warrant mapping. Conversely, the interpretation of some of the mapped features, at 12 Tennyson Road or 32 Chaucer Road for example, is open to question; they could instead have been garden vegetation or ordinary outbuildings. 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.