Suffolk's Defended Shore: Coastal Fortifications from the Air

120 Pages·2007·5.088 MB·English

by  Cain Hegarty, Sarah Newsome

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SUFFOLK’S DEFENDED SHORE
Coastal Fortifications from the Air

SUFFOLK’S DEFENDED
SHORE
Coastal Fortifications from the Air
Cain Hegarty and Sarah Newsome

Contents
Acknowledgements vii
List of abbreviations viii
1 The big picture 1
2 An aerial perspective 4
3 From prehistory to the medieval period 11
4 The 16th to 19th centuries 15
5 The 20th century up to the Second World War 23
6 The Second World War 35
7 The Cold War era 76
8 The future of Suffolk’s coastal military remains 87
Bibliography 101
Sources and archives 104
Index 105

Acknowledgements
Numerous organisations and individuals generously contributed
support,adviceandmaterialtotheSuffolkCoastalNationalMapping
Programmeprojectandthewritingofthisbook.Asthispublicationis
abouttheapplicationofaerialphotographytoarchaeology,wewould
like to begin by thanking all those who kindly allowed the reproduc-
tion of their aerial photographs, including the National Monuments
Record, the Imperial War Museum, the Ashmolean Museum, The
National Trust, Ordnance Survey, The Hammond Collection, The
GoldsworthyCollection,Pre-ConstructArchaeologyandMrsJoanna
Turner. Particular thanks go to Damian Grady for his excellent
photographsofsomechallengingsubjects.
Thanks also go to everyone who helped in our research and
contributed to, or gave permission for, the reproduction of ground
photography or illustrations.These include our colleagues at Suffolk
County Council, the National Monuments Record, the Cambridge
University Unit for Landscape Modelling (formerly CUCAP), the
National Portrait Gallery, the Tank Museum, the Imperial War
Museum,Douglas Atfield,Frank Gardiner,Adrian James,Louise K
Wilson,NeilWylie,JohnSmith,PeterWhiteandPhilHadwen,Geoff
Dewing, Orwell Park School and Bettina Furnée. Additionally the
phasedplanoftheearthworksatOrfordCastleisbasedonthework
of English Heritage’s Archaeological Survey and Investigation team.
Particular thanks are given to the families of Mr Dennis Huett and
MrLesDinning.
As well as the research undertaken at the National Monuments
Record,materialattheNationalArchivesandtheIpswichbranchof
the Suffolk Record Office was also consulted. Both organisations
kindly gave permission for the reproduction of material in their care
andhelpedustousetheirarchiveseffectively.
Wayne Cocroft, Jude Plouviez, John Schofield, Keith Wade and
Helen Winton read drafts of the text and provided valuable
comments which we have endeavoured to incorporate. Andrew
Saunders read the final draft and we are grateful for his comments
and hope that we have successfully tackled them in the final version
ofthetext.
Finally we would like to thank all our colleagues who have
supported us during our time working on the Suffolk Coast NMP
project and this book, particularly members of English Heritage’s
Aerial Survey team whose individual contributions and support are
toonumeroustomention.SuffolkCountyCouncil’sArchaeological
Servicealsodeservesaspecialmention,particularlythesupportand
advice we have received from Tom Loader and Jude Plouviez over
thepastfiveyears.
CainHegartyandSarahNewsome
June2006
vii
Abbreviations
A&AEE AeroplaneandArmamentExperimentalEstablishment
AA Anti-Aircraft
AFV ArmouredFightingVehicle
ARP AirRaidPrecautions
AVRE ArmouredVehicleRoyalEngineers
AWRE AtomicWeaponsResearchEstablishment
CASL CoastalArtillerySearchlight
CD CoastalDefence
CH ChainHome
CHEL ChainHomeExtraLow
CHL ChainHomeLow
CO CombinedOperations
DoB DefenceofBritain(project)
GCI GroundControlledInterception
HAA HeavyAnti-aircraftArtillery
HER HistoricEnvironmentRecord
LST LandingShipTanks
MoD MinistryofDefence
MPP MonumentsProtectionProgramme
NATO NorthAtlanticTreatyOrganisation
NMP NationalMappingProgramme
NMR NationalMonumentsRecord
OTH Over-The-Horizon(radar)
RAC RoyalArmouredCorps
RAF RoyalAirForce
RFC RoyalFlyingCorps
RNAS RoyalNavalAirService
ROC RoyalObserverCorps
SMR SitesandMonumentsRecord
USAAF USArmyAirForce
Note:Manyoftheaerialphotographsusedinthistextshowadetail
ofanenlargementfromthereferencedimage.Thisandthedate
whenthephotographwastakenresultsintheimagereproduction
beingofavariablequality.
Northistothetopofaverticalaerialphotographunlessindicated
bythedirectionoftheredarrow
viii