NHER 42454 (Monument record) - World War Two Coastal Artillery Searchlight Battery and other defences on Winterton Dunes

February 2006. Norfolk NMP.
A World War Two Coastal Artillery Searchlight (CASL) Battery and other defences are visible as extant buildings, structures and earthworks on aerial photographs (S1)-(S10), centred at TG 5011 1924. The battery, first visible on aerial photographs taken in 1944, was provided for the Emergency Coast Battery (NHER 35863) located on the cliffs 240m to the west. It consisted of two searchlight emplacements and a generator house, all of which are depicted on a plan of the area in the Coastal Battery’s Fort Record Book (FRB), reproduced in Bird (1999) (S11). A number of defences and other structures were also located here from 1940 onwards. It should be noted that due to a lack of suitable control points, rectification of photographs for this site was poor and the location of the mapped features should be regarded as approximate.

The earliest consulted aerial photographs of the site were taken in August 1940 (S1)-(S2). At this date a polygonal pillbox and a tent are visible at approximately TG 5017 1921, situated on the seaward edge of the dunes, within an ‘enclosure’ of barbed wire which projected out from the main line (NHER 27278). The polygonal pillbox can be seen on later aerial photographs to be a Type 22; a structure visible on its roof on aerial photographs taken in 1946 (S8) was probably a mount for a Light Anti Aircraft gun (compare NHER 15115 at Gimingham and the pillboxes surrounding Winterton Coastal Battery NHER 35863). To the north, at TG 5010 1932, a small hut may have had a military use or may have been a fisherman’s hut or similar. By September 1940 (S3)-(S4) the tent described above had been removed, but two tents are visible slightly to the north, at TG 5015 1923. By December (S5) a small earthwork emplacement, probably for a gun, is visible immediately to the west of the pillbox.

On aerial photographs taken in 1944 and later (S6)-(S9), the pillbox described above is still visible. Inland, the structures which formed part of the searchlight battery are visible on the dunes. They comprised two rectangular searchlight emplacements, at TG 5003 1953 and TG 5012 1920, and a generator house at TG 5005 1943 (also recorded individually as NHER 31793) (see too (S9)). The northern emplacement appears to have had a pitched roof in 1945 (S7) and may have been camouflaged as a fisherman’s hut. Both the northern emplacement and the generator house were isolated structures, but the southern emplacement lay within a barbed wire compound, together with a number of anti invasion defences. Two Type 24 pillboxes stood at TG 5009 1922 and TG 5013 1910, and spigot mortar emplacements are visible at TG 5008 1924 and TG 5009 1914.

Although many of the structures at the site were left intact at the end of the war and are visible on post-War aerial photographs, coastal erosion appears to have demolished the buildings. Field survey has identified the remains of several buildings, recorded as NHER 31792, 41600, 41603 and 31793. Some elements, however, may survive; both spigot mortar emplacements are visible on the most recent consulted aerial photographs of the site taken in 2002 (S10).
S. Tremlett (NMP), 1 February 2006.