NHER 43300 (Monument record) - Site of World War Two air raid shelter at Suffolk Close, Gorleston-on-Sea

May 2006. Norfolk NMP.
A large World War Two air raid shelter is visible as an earthwork and structures on aerial photographs (S1)-(S4), centred at TG 5218 0548. Its size, together with its location on open ground, suggests that it was a public shelter. It was probably provided for local residents, although many appear to have had their own private shelters (see NHER 43594). It consisted of an earthwork mound, which presumably covered a semi-sunken structure. The mound was notably wedge-shaped in profile, its west side being higher than its east side; this is not a feature noted amongst many of the other public shelters identified at Great Yarmouth. Two sloped (or stepped) entrances, surrounded by what appear to have been fences, are visible along its north and south sides. Four concrete or masonry plinths or pads visible on the roof probably mark the location of ventilation shafts. Recent aerial photographs, e.g. (S5), and modern Ordnance Survey maps demonstrate that the site has since been levelled and built over. Whether sub-surface structures and deposits associated with the shelter remain is not known.
S. Tremlett (NMP), 8 May 2006.