NHER 27583 (Monument record) - Site of World War Two light anti aircraft battery on Cobholm Island playing field, Great Yarmouth

February 2006. Norfolk NMP.
A World War Two light anti aircraft (LAA) battery is visible as earthworks, structures and buildings on aerial photographs taken from March 1944 onwards (S1)-(S5), centred at TG 5131 0763. The emplacement itself, a rectilinear revetted and embanked structure, is visible at the centre of the site. Several features are visible in its immediate vicinity, the precise nature of which is unknown. They include a possible structure to its southeast and a rectangular pit, perhaps a weapons pit, to its northwest. A spigot mortar emplacement is visible further to its southeast, at TG 5133 0762. To the northwest (at TG 5127 0769) lay a linear arrangement of concrete or masonry paving, the southern end of which was encircled by a track (mapped as a bank). Small structures are visible on the paving on the 1944 aerial photographs (S1)-(S3). Its function is not known but it is comparable to features seen at other LAA sites, for example NHER 27451. It was perhaps associated with gun-laying radar, height prediction or a searchlight. To its southwest, in the northwest corner of the site, another area of paving is visible. This was perhaps a building platform, which once supported a hut or similar structure.

To the southeast of the emplacement were numerous huts, tents and other structures, which presumably provided accommodation and other facilities for the battery’s garrison. Many of those along the south side of the site are not visible on photographs taken in March 1944 (S1), suggesting an influx of people or equipment after that date. (The probable tents, visible in May 1944 (S2), have been mapped as three circular structures between TG 5137 0758 and TG 5139 0759.) The playing field’s pavilion (not mapped by the NMP) was probably also used. Two pits are visible at TG 5140 0765 and TG 5140 0766, the function of which is unknown; the northern pit may have had some kind of structure within it (not mapped). To its south, the battery was protected by defences. A spigot mortar emplacement is visible at TG 5144 0752. A probable road block consisting of four concrete blocks is visible on a bridge at TG 5126 0750.

The fact that no gun is visible within the emplacement on aerial photographs taken in July 1944 (S3) suggests that the battery may have already been decommissioned by this date. The site was dismantled at the end of the war, although some elements were not entirely removed. The spigot mortar emplacement at TG 5144 0752, for example, is still visible as an earthwork on aerial photographs taken in 1980 (S6). It appears to have been levelled, however, when the A12 was constructed on the former railway embankment to its east, and no traces of the battery are visible on more recent aerial photographs of the site, for example (S7).
S. Tremlett (NMP), 13 February 2006.