NHER 38795 (Monument record) - Possible World War Two searchlight or anti-aircraft battery

September 2004. Norfolk NMP.
A possible World War Two searchlight and/or anti-aircraft battery is visible as cropmarks on aerial photographs (S1), centred at TG 2466 3957. The morphology and location of the site suggests this date and function, but ring ditches of possible prehistoric date have been identified in the area (e.g. NHER 11708 350m to the north-east) and other interpretations are possible. The site, however, is broadly comparable to a searchlight battery at Gimingham (NHER 34407), five kilometres to the south-east, which also occupies a position approximately one kilometre inland from the modern coastline. The fact that no trace of the site is visible on 1946 aerial photographs suggests that either its archaeological origin is doubtful or the battery was dismantled and ploughed before or immediately after the end of the war.

The site consists of two conjoined ring ditches measuring 20-30m in diameter. The south-western ring ditch is large for a searchlight emplacement. A third possible ring ditch or partial ring ditch, defined by a less substantial ditch, lies just to the south-east. This is crossed by a linear ditch of unknown date and function. (S1)
S. Tremlett (NMP), 16 September 2004.