Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

A World War II anti tank blockhouse; a rectangular structure for mounting three or six pounder guns. Also a World War I Naval gun. There is an internal dividing wall; the smaller section of blockhouse was for a heavy machine gun.

Summary from record TQ 77 SE 1276:

Part of complete complex, forming a section of 'The Hoo Stop Line' in context with anti-tank ditch, blocks and infantry pillbox (Type 24).

Summary from record TQ 77 SE 1139:

Large Pillbox for an anti-tank gun, identified during a 2004 survey. Brick built with a north facing gub aperture. There are also smaller openings for smaller guns to defend the main entrance.

Monument Types

• PILLBOX (Modern - 1940 AD? to 1944 AD?)

Full description

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Rectangular structure for mounting 3pr or 6pr. WW1 QF navel gun. Internal dividing wall with smaller section of blockhouse for heavy machine gun (1,2), site photographs (3-7).

Description from record TQ 77 SE 1276:
Good overall condition, embrasures open, access via doorway. Facing N/NE.,
Owner : Public
Publicly accessible : Yes
How accessed for survey : On route of Saxon shoreway.
Tourism Potential : Yes, withyin context of previously described defences. Certainly lends itself to a desriptive board.
Condition : good
Date of visit : 06/10/29

Description from record TQ 77 SE 1139:
Large brick-built anti-tank gun pillbox. Aperture for the gun faces north. Also has smaller opening for smaller guns to defend the main entrance. (1)

Listing Text:

HOO ST WERBURGH

1797/1/10021 Type 28 WWII pillbox on seawall of Riv
21-MAY-10 er Medway at TQ7924471695

GV II
Type 28 pillbox (anti-tank gun emplacement) at the southern end of the Hoo Stop- line, built 1940.

MATERIALS: Yellow brick, largely laid in stretcher courses, and concrete.

DESCRIPTION:
The pillbox is located below and behind (north) of the sea wall on the north bank of the Medway estuary at TQ 79244 71695. It is rectangular, with chamfered corners and has a flat concrete roof with a chamfered edge. The single large entrance is to the south. Type 28s are a very large pillbox form which consequently required a much larger entrance than the more common infantry pillbox in order to wheel in the gun. This would have been a two or six-pounder quick-firing gun which also needed a much larger embrasure, here on the north side. This has a concrete lintel and a stepped raked concrete aperture. There are also a number of embrasures for small arms, also with concrete lintels and raked apertures. The interior is divided unequally in two with the larger room for the gun. The smaller presumably housed the shells. The building is oriented such that the main field of fire is to the north along the stop-line and anti-tank ditch.

HISTORY:
The pillbox was built in 1940 as one component of the Hoo Stop-line. This defensive anti-invasion line stretched for approximately eight miles between the River Thames near Cliffe and the River Medway to the south-east of Hoo St Werburgh. The building of defence works to protect against German invasion began in June 1940 following the defeat of British forces in Europe and the return of many troops from Dunkirk. Stop-lines were essentially anti-tank obstacles intended to check the advance of fast moving columns of armoured troops; they were also intended as prepared battlefields for the Field Army to defend in the event of invasion. The local Home Guard Unit would have been responsible for keeping the pillboxes supplied and would have also assisted in the manning of roadblocks.

The Hoo Stop-line was part of the principal stop-line; the GHQ (General Headquarters) Line which ran from the North Somerset Coast to the east of London and then, parallel with the east coast, to Yorkshire. The GHQ line across the Hoo peninsula took the form of an artificial anti-tank ditch dug to join the Medway and Thames rivers. This was supported by pillboxes, anti-tank rails and road blocks. The War Office plan for this line indicates a total of sixty infantry and eighteen anti-tank pillboxes enclosing the higher ground containing the Lodge Hill and Chattenden Ordnance Depots (now the Royal School of Military Engineering's Lodge Hill Camp and Chattenden Barracks.) Each individual component would have been encircled in barbed wire for extra protection, as would the defended localities (see below). There were probably also other earthworks in support which are now lost, such as slit trenches.

The Hoo Peninsula was a heavily militarised zone during the Second World War with Hoo itself designated as a Defended Village in 1941 with a garrison of sixty-three men armed with anti-tank rifles and Bren guns. Kingshill Camp, to the west of Bell Lane, was a designated Defended Locality with a further one hundred troops from the 347th Searchlight Battery, Royal Artillery. High Halstow village to the north was a further Defended Locality and the Royal Navy Ammunition Store at Lodge Hill had a garrison of three hundred men. As the topography here is very low-lying, with relatively easy access from the coast, the stop-line was intended to provide a man-made defence against invasion, specifically by tanks, and subtle changes in gradient or even hedge lines were used to site the various defensive components to best advantage in the protection of the higher ground and ordnance depots.

SOURCES:
Foot W, Defence Areas: a national study of Second World War anti-invasion landscapes in England. English Heritage and the Council for British Archaeology (2004)
Saunders W & Smith V, Kent's Defence Heritage, Site KD164 Hoo St. Werburgh to Lodge Hill Line of Pillboxes. Kent County Council (2001)
War Office document, Hoo Stop Line (reference WO 166/4297): sketch plan and list of infantry and anti-tank pillboxes

REASON FOR DESIGNATION:
The Type 28 pillbox (an anti-tank gun emplacement) below the sea wall at Hoo St Werburgh is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Rarity: This is a pillbox type which is not particularly numerous nationally, and therefore has rarity value;
* Historical Interest: a pillbox at the south end of the Hoo Stop Line; a significant stop-line which could have been one of the front lines in the event of an invasion from across The Channel;
* Group Value: with a Type 24 pillbox and anti-tank cubes, all of which reinforce the end of the line.

=
This feature is reported in the English Heritage report on the Second World War Stop Line in the Hoo Peninsula, part of the wider Hoo Peninsula study. The report states: "Second World War Type 28 reinforced concrete artillery pillbox, brick-shuttered, on the river wall on the north bank of the Medway, south east of Hoo St Werburgh. A 'Double' non-hexagonal pillbox, rectangular structure for mounting 2-pounder or 6-pounder Quick Firing naval gun. Internal dividing wall with smaller section of blockhouse for heavy machine gun. The pillbox is visible on aerial photographs taken in May 1942 and clearly visible on aerial photographs of September 2013 (Google Earth). Seen during a field visit in Summer 2014. Listed at Grade II NHLE 1393816". (8)

MMRG, 10/06/07, Type 28 A Pill Box (Photograph). SKE14498.

unkown, 18/01/41, War Diary 11th Glosters (Collection). SKE14260.

<1> Victor Smith and Ron Crowdy, Thames Gateway Assesment: Gazetteer of Defence Sites (Index). SKE6445.

<1> Wessex Archaeology, 2005, North Kent Coast Rapid Coastal Zone Assessment Survey: Phase ll: Field Assessment Year One report (Unpublished document). SWX12121.

<2> Kent County Council, 1999, Survey of Kent post-1500 defence sites, KD164 (Index). SWX11828.

<3> 1946, Photograph (Photograph (Print)). SWX9563.

<4> 1947, Photograph (Photograph (Print)). SWX9839.

<5> 1947, Photograph (Photograph (Print)). SWX9869.

<6> 2000, Photograph (Photograph (Print)). SWX10334.

<7> 1946, Photograph (Photograph (Print)). SWX9512.

<8> historic england, 2014, Hoo Peninsula Landscape Project: Second World War Stop Line: Hoo St Werburgh to Higham Marshes. Research Report 9-2014. (Bibliographic reference). SKE31599.

Sources and further reading

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