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Monument details
| HER Number: | TR 15 NE 842 |
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| Type of record: | Monument |
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| Name: | Second World War Road block at the bridge over the railway on the track out to Garrington Farm, Bekesbourne |
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Summary
There was a Second World War road-block on a small bridge in a farm-track lbetween Bekesbourne and Garrington Farms. It formed part of the defences of the Dover, Canterbury, Whitstable Stop Line, which here followed the course of the Canterbury to Dover Railway. A triple line of concrete anti-tank pimples survives to the west of the roadblock, and there was an anti-tank ditchon the other side.
| Grid Reference: | TR 1998 5568 |
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| Map Sheet: | TR15NE |
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| Parish: | ICKHAM AND WELL, CANTERBURY, KENT |
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Monument Types
- ROADBLOCK (Modern - 1940 AD to 1945 AD?)
| Protected Status: | Selected Heritage Inventory for Natural England: Second World War anti-tank blocks, Bekesbourne |
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Full description
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This was a road-block on a small bridge serving an unmade farm-track leading out from Bekesbourne to Garrington Farms. It was roadblock No. 80 in the lists of concrete defences collated in late 1940. It formed part of the defences of the Dover, Canterbury, Whitstable Stop Line, which here followed the course of the Canterbury to Dover Railway. As one would expect, therefore, it seems to have lain across the northern end of the bridge. A superb triple line of ‘a hundred or so’ of true-tetragonal, concrete anti-tank pimples extends to the west of the roadblock, preventing bypass; several are believed to be numbered. They follow a sweeping recurved path, where a lightly wooded gully descended toward the base of the railway cutting. This gully may have formed a weak point in the railway, and these pimples therefore served a dual function of flanking the road-block and preventing descent into the gully; there was a smaller stretch of similar obstacles across the same gully south of the railway, visible on immediate post-war aerial photographs. The Defence of Britain Project noted the ‘possible remains of a gun emplacement in an adjacent hollow’. Adjoining the other side of the road-block, north of the railway, there was an anti-tank ditch, visible on immediate post-war aerial photographs.
Owner : Public
Publicly accessible : Yes
How accessed for survey :
Tourism Potential :
Condition : good
Date of visit :
CBA Defence of Britain Project (Digital archive). SKE15178.
CBA Defence of Britain Project (Digital archive). Ske15178.
John Herbert, Photograph by John Herbert (digital copy in project archive) (Photograph). SKE15176.
John Herbert, Photograph by John Herbert (digital copy in project archive) (Photograph). Ske15176.
43 Division General Staff, 01/01/40, War Diary 43 Division General Staff (Unpublished document). SKE15175.
43 Division General Staff, 01/01/40, War Diary 43 Division General Staff (Unpublished document). Ske15175.
Millyard D., 01/01/96, Bekesbourne and the Second World War (Bibliographic reference). SKE15177.
Millyard D., 01/01/96, Bekesbourne and the Second World War (Bibliographic reference). Ske15177.
Sources and further reading
| Cross-ref.
| Source description | | --- | Unpublished document: 43 Division General Staff. 01/01/40. War Diary 43 Division General Staff. |
| --- | Photograph: John Herbert. Photograph by John Herbert (digital copy in project archive). |
| --- | Bibliographic reference: Millyard D.. 01/01/96. Bekesbourne and the Second World War. |
| --- | Digital archive: CBA Defence of Britain Project. |
