NHER 38888 (Monument record) - World War Two trenches

October 2004. Norfolk NMP.
The earthworks of a World War Two slit trench are visible on aerial photographs running along the cliff top to the West of Cromer (S1 and S2). The site is centred on TG 2096 4251. The trench is between 2 to 3m wide and is 125 long. This trench may have been dug as part of training practice as well as acting as a potential invasion defence. The earthworks look very overgrown by August 1941 (S1) indicating that the trench must have been dug very early in World War Two. There is nothing definite morphologically to suggest that it is earlier and therefore World War One. This trench sits within a much larger spread of World War Two defences and military sites, which provided coastal protection and training areas, such as NHER 32576, 38869 to 71, 38873 and 38893 to 4, all along the Cromer cliff tops. A group of potentially existing buildings visible on contemporary aerial photographs, located to the immediate south, may also have been incorporated into this military activity and training (NHER 38883).

Incredibly slight and fragmentary earthworks remain of the slit trench in 1967 (S2), although on later photography the features are not clearly visible and may have beed destroyed by a combination of cliff erosion and repeated use of the area as a car park.
S. Massey (NMP), 20 October 2004.