NHER 42493 (Maritime record) - Possible wreck visible in 1940 on Hemsby beach

February 2006. Norfolk NMP.
A possible wreck is visible as an extant structure on aerial photographs taken in August 1940 (S1)-(S2), centred at TG 4068 1760. Given the likelihood of structures in this coastal environment being moved by natural processes, and the absence of control points to allow sites to located accurately, it could equate to any or all of the wreck sites recorded in the vicinity, namely NHER 41608 36m to the northwest, NHER 22884 47m to the southeast and NHER 30728 175m to the southeast. All of these sites have been suggested as the site of the Vigo, wrecked at the turn of the 20th century. Alternatively the structure, which appears to have been fairly intact in 1940, may have been a modern fishing boat, hauled up temporarily on the beach. A third possibility, given the date of the photographs and the site’s location just inland of a line of World War Two barbed wire, is that it was a World War Two military structure of some kind.
S. Tremlett (NMP), 2 February 2006.