NHER 43542 (Monument record) - Site of probable air raid shelters of World War Two date at 39 and 41 Caister Road

April 2006. Norfolk NMP.
At least two probable World War Two air raid shelters are visible as structures and earthworks on aerial photographs (S1), centred at TG 5242 0894. They lay in the back gardens of 39 and 41 Caister Road. This location, together with the small size of the northernmost shelter, suggests that they were private shelters, each intended for the use of these particular households. The shelter at Number 41 appears to have been a surface (or only partially sunken) structure with a curved profile. It may have been an Anderson shelter without its usual covering of earth, or a similar proprietary design. The shelter at Number 39 has been mapped as a single mound but may have comprised two shelters stood side-by-side, each with a curved profile (compare, for example, the block of shelters located off Howard Street South 1.5km to the south, NHER 27530). Further shelters may have existed in other front gardens along this terrace, such as Number 43 immediately to the north, but nothing else was clear enough on the consulted aerial photographs to warrant mapping. Recent aerial photographs of the area, e.g. (S2), demonstrate that the shelters have almost certainly now been levelled.
S. Tremlett (NMP), 12 April 2006.