NHER 43685 (Monument record) - Site of probable World War Two air raid shelters on Sturdee Avenue and Cunningham Avenue

May 2006. Norfolk NMP.
Six probable air raid shelters dating to World War Two are visible as earthworks and structures on aerial photographs (S1), between TG 5288 0981 and TG 5288 0971. The shelters lay in what were then the back gardens of houses on Sturdee Avenue (the gardens have since been partially built over). 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. Judging by the shape of the mounds, 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. The shelter at 95 Sturdee Avenue (its site is now in the garden of 1/27 Cunningham Avenue) is visible as a small, rectangular, surface-level or semi-sunken structure, which is distinguished from an ordinary outbuilding by its curved shape in profile. It also had façades at each end that were higher and wider than the main body of the shelter, suggesting that this was almost certainly an Anderson shelter, but without its usual covering of earth. A trench at the west end of the shelter at 93 Sturdee Avenue probably marks the location of a sunken entrance. The entrance to this shelter, and also those at Numbers 91 and 81, was protected by a blast wall. Further shelters may have lain in other gardens along this street, such as that belonging to Number 51, but nothing was convincing or clear enough on the consulted aerial photographs to warrant mapping. Since the war, the gardens have been partially built over, as has the former railway line (NHER 13581) to their east. The sites of some of the shelters now underlie Cunningham Avenue and the gardens on its east side. There is no evidence on recent aerial photographs of the site, e.g. (S2), that any element of the shelters still survives above ground.
S. Tremlett (NMP), 24 May 2006.