NHER 43681 (Monument record) - Site of World War Two air raid shelters at 4, 22 and 24 Beresford Road

May 2006. Norfolk NMP.
Three probable air raid shelters dating to World War Two are visible as earthworks on aerial photographs (S1), between TG 5265 0949 and TG 5271 0949. They lay in the back gardens of 4, 22 and 24 Beresford Road. This location, together with their small size, suggests that they were private shelters, intended for the use of these particular households. They may have been Anderson shelters, or similar proprietary designs. They are all visible as earthwork mounds, each of which probably covered a small semi-sunken or surface-level structure. A projecting bank of earth visible at the south end of the mound at Number 24 was probably a blast wall protecting the entrance to the shelter. The shelter at Number 4 seems to have been similarly protected, although its form cannot be made out in any detail. Further shelters may have lain in other gardens nearby, such as that belonging to Number 12, but nothing was convincing or clear enough on the consulted aerial photographs to warrant mapping. Conversely, the interpretation of the mound visible at Number 22 is open to question; it could instead have been a small tree or bush. None of the mapped shelters is visible on more recent aerial photographs of the site, for example (S2), and they have presumably been levelled.
S. Tremlett (NMP), 23 May 2006.