Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

Site of Second World War sixty-four single barrelled UP rocket projector battery Chatham Z1 at Chattenden. It had GL Mark I radar in 1942, and was manned by 111 Battery of the 12th Royal Artillery Regiment

Monument Types

• NISSEN HUT (Modern - 1939 AD? to 1945 AD?)
• RADAR STATION (Modern - 1939 AD? to 1945 AD?)
• ROCKET PROJECTOR BATTERY (Modern - 1939 AD? to 1945 AD?)

Full description

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Site of Second World War sixty-four single barrelled UP rocket projector battery Chatham Z1 at Chattenden. It had GL Mark I radar in 1942, and was manned by 111 Battery of the 12th Royal Artillery Regiment. The footprint of this installation can be seen on aerial photographs taken in 1944, and has been mapped as part of the English Heritage: Hoo Peninsula Landscape Project. The remains appear as areas of flattened grass indicating the former projector sites, which were arranged in a four-row grid, each row comprising four clusters of four projector sites. Earth covered shelters and possible deposition sites for ammunition or stores can also be seen. The traces of the projector battery are indistinct on the 1944 photographs, suggesting that the sixty-four rocket arrangement may have gone out of use by that date. Five areas of hard standing in the southern half of the site, apparently supporting small structures, may indicate a later configuration of rocket projectors. By 1945, aerial photographs show that the projector site had been overbuilt by pairs of temporary buildings or Nissen huts belonging to the temporary magazine at Lodge Hill Camp. No clear traces of the GL radar mat could be identified in the immediate vicinity of the rocket projector site on the 1944 aerial photographs, although a semi circular area at TQ 7549 7342, enclosed by the southern perimeter fence of Lodge Hill Camp, could indicate a disused GL site in a part of the camp occupied, in 1944, by military support buildings. Alternatively, a GL site located 1256m to the south east could have served this rocket projector site. (1,2,3)

<1> English Heritage, 2013, Hoo Peninsula, Kent. Hoo Peninsula Historic Landscape Project (Bibliographic reference). SKE31432.

<2> Historic England, 2012, National Mapping Programme survey: Hoo Peninsula (Digital archive). SKE32442.

<3> Historic England, Pastscape: the website of the Historic England National Record of the Historic Environment, 1454727 (Website). SKE31906.

Sources and further reading