NHER 42499 (Monument record) - Possible World War Two bombing decoy for Winterton Emergency Coastal Battery

February 2006. Norfolk NMP.
Two large gun emplacements are visible as extant structures on aerial photographs (S1)-(S3), at TG 5014 1831 and TG 5018 1825. Their size and shape is reminiscent of World War Two coastal gun batteries, such as that at Mundesley (NHER 14142), but they lack the ancillary buildings and defences typically associated with such sites. They may have been a bombing decoy for Winterton Emergency Coastal Battery located along the coast to the north, although the distance of approximately 1km between the gun houses at Winterton battery and the emplacements recorded here is much less than the minimum 12,000 yards (10.973km) specified in contemporary literature (as outlined in Dobinson 2000 (S4)). The Winterton battery was constructed before August 1940; the postulated decoy is not visible on the consulted 1940 aerial photographs but was probably constructed soon after this date. The construction of parts of the adjacent radar station (NHER 35862) in close proximity to the emplacements presumably occurred after the decoy had gone out of use.

The possible decoy consisted of two roughly triangular emplacements or gun platforms, sited on the cliff edge approximately 65m apart. Structures visible on their roofs were presumably holdfasts, whether real or imitation. Their shape contrasted with the ‘L’-shaped gun houses at the Winterton battery but the absence of a conjoined building connecting the two emplacements mimicked the real battery, which had underground rooms. The emplacements have the appearance of being solid structures, built of masonry or concrete, and it is not known how much of the site was made of more temporary materials such as canvas and wood. Although little is known about the location and character of coastal artillery decoy sites, some at least may have been provided with real or artificial ‘gun and light emplacements, BOPs [Battery Observation Posts], ammunition recesses, trenches, wire and so on’ (S4). None of these features are evident at the site described here (other than a possible line of barbed wire separating it from the field to its west), either because they were never built or because they had already been removed by May 1944, by which time it was more-or-less surrounded by the radar station (NHER 35862) and its associated camp (NHER 42500). Alternatively, the structures might have been genuine gun emplacements, sited to protect a particularly vulnerable stretch of coastline. A later aerial photograph of the site (S5) demonstrates that they were demolished by 1950.
S. Tremlett (NMP), 8 February 2006.