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Monument details

Summary

Hoo Peninsula, Second World War Stop Line from Hoo St Werburgh to Higham Marshes as recorded in the English Heritage Archaeological Report 9-2014. The stop line was a series of connected anti-invasion defences constructed from 1940.

Monument Types

• STOP LINE (Modern - 1940 AD to 1945 AD (between))

Full description

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Hoo Peninsula, Second World War Stop Line from Hoo St Werburgh to Higham Marshes as recorded in the English Heritage Archaeological Report 9-2014. The stop line was a series of connected anti-invasion defences constructed from 1940.

The report states:
"The Newhaven-Hoo General Headquarters line was constructed in July and August 1940 by Eastern Command of the Home Forces to hinder the progress of anticipated invasion from the beaches in Kent and Sussex. It was 128km in length and extended between Newhaven on the East Sussex coast, to the River Thames in Kent. The Hoo Peninsula section of the Newhaven-Hoo GHQ Line stretches from the northern bank of the River Medway, near Hoo St Werburgh, to Higham Marshes, near Cliffe on the southern bank of the River Thames. It was partly intended to protect Chatham dockyards from possible enemy landings on the Isle of Grain or Allhallows and to reinforce the defences around the Lodge Hill and Chattenden ordnance depots. Where possible it used natural and manmade obstacles such as woodland, quarries and drainage ditches on its west side, to counter an attack from the east, by closely spaced infantry pillboxes and anti-tank gun emplacements and road blocks.

Parts of linear anti-invasion defences have national designations for reasons of historic interest, group value and rarity. Along the route of the Hoo Peninsula section of the Newhaven-Hoo GHQ Line, six pillboxes and a line of anti-tank cubes are listed and there is one scheduled monument, Lodge Hill Anti-Aircraft Battery. The stop line on the Hoo Peninsula is remarkable because of the range of different elements that still form a legible pattern of defence. These include buried and earthwork remains of the anti-tank ditch, a number of anti-tank cubes, part of a concrete roadblock, and most of the pillboxes which protected the line of the anti-tank ditch. The stop line represents a defensive strategy that was only in favour for a matter of months during the Second World War and helps to document the rapid changes in development of anti-invasion defences in this period. The area is considered important not only in terms of the numbers of defence works of different types that it contains but also in the way it still forms a coherent pattern of defence linked to its topography and that the hedgerows concealing defence works still remain as an integral part of the defence landscape."

The English Heritage report further gives an overview of the line as follows: "The stop line on Hoo is a well preserved example of a short lived form of anti-invasion defence. The development of inland linear anti-tank systems was proposed in June 1940 by General Sir Edmund Ironside. However, it had fallen out of favour as a defensive concept by August 1940, when Ironside was succeeded by General Sir Alan Brooke. Construction of the Newhaven-Hoo section of the GHQ line was well advanced bu this stage, which may account for the high number of hardened defences along its route and the number of more ephemoral features that survive. In contrast, for example, the line north of the Fenland boundary between Eastern and Northern Command was not provided with pillboxes or weapon emplacements in any great number (Dobinson 1996, 40).

The Stop Line is an important part of the story of military activity on the Hoo Peninsula. First World War structures were reused in its construction and it is adjacent to a number of other military sites, including, the Lodge Hill Ordnance Depot, in use from the late 19th century, and the First and Second World War Deangate Ridge training area. The stop line is therefore an important part of the defended landscape of the peninsula, but the range of features it encompasses mean that it is also an rare survival of a major chapter in the national story. These static defences represent 'the most intense building programme ever undertaken by the army's Home Forces commands' (Dobinson 1996,2). Together with other national Second World War anti-invasion defences, the Hoo Stop Line also has a European context.

Most defensive structures around towns and cities were removed shortly after the end of the war, but their survival is better in rural areas, particularly of hardened structures, where they tended to be removed only if they interfered with agricultural or amenity needs (Foot 2006,1). Some defence works were removed before the end of the war for these same reasons. Many anti-tank ditches were filled in because they were an obstacle to agriculture and this was apparent during the aerial survey of the stop line. For example, photographs of 1944 of parts of the sections from Deangate Ridge to Higham Marshes and between Lodge Hill Wood and Berry Court Wood show that infilling work on the anti-tank ditch had already started. However, around a quarter of all elements, structures and earthworks, associated with the stop line are extant and approximately half of the features recorded as structures during the survey survive. This compares well with the national picture as presented by Foot of 24% of hardended field defences in England still being extant.

The survival of the hardened defences along the Hoo stop line compares well with that of the Taunton stop line, which cut off the south west peninsula, and the GHQ Line Green, which formed the outer defence line for Bristol. Individual areas of these stop lines demonstrate a similar picture of the way the landscape was adapted to with with the defences, such as at Pawlett Hill (northern end of the Taunton stop line near Bridgewater, Somerset) and Godney (GHQ Line Green, Somerset Levels). Natural features such as rivers and woodland were exploited in all stop lines and this can be seen in the use of woodland and marshes on the Hoo Peninsula. The northern and southern ends extend into the marshy ground around the peninsula as a line of anti-tank cubes, into the River Thames and River Medway respectively. However, over a large part of the length of the defences, an artificial anti-tank ditch had to be constructed. It is the survival of a variety of defensive features within the compact landscape of the Hoo Peninsula that enable a coherent picture of how these defences were intended to work to be gained.

An assessment of earthworks which may survive as sub-surface remains, has rarely been a feature of surveys of extensive Second World War defensive structures. While anti-tank ditches might have been thought generally to be have been filled in, the current survey has shown that sections of it survive as low earthworks and buried remains. This makes the Hoo section of the stop line unusual in Second World War studies because an assessment has been made of all the features associated with it.

Two areas of the line are of particular note:
The River Medway to Kingshill section demonstrates the variety of surviving features and illustrates how they worked within the landscape. The anti-tank ditch survives here as a low earthwork, suggestive of further sub-surface survival, which can be seen crossing two fields either side of a track. Three Type 24 pillboxes and one Type 28 pillbox are also located along the line of the anti-tank ditch in this area. Two weapons pits recorded here during the aerial survey may survive as sub-surface features. The pillboxes have recessed embrasures that demonstrate the local variations that took place in the construction of national anti-invasion defences.

The stop line on Deangate Ridge demonstrates the incorporation of woodland (Wybornes Wood, Lodge Hill Wood, Berry Court Wood) into the defensive line and the reuse of earlier military structures. Between Wybornes Wood and Lodge Hill Wood, a Second World War pillbox was placed within a First World War redoubt. Between Lodge Hill Wood and Berry Court Wood, structures associated with the scheduled Lodge Hill First World War anti-aircraft battery was placed in and around this area. The use of the local topography is also marked between Lodge Hill Wood and Berry Court Wood where the anti-tank ditch was constructed at a break of slope on a steep incline, below the plateau on which the anti-aircraft battery is located. The survival of features as low earthworks in both areas may indicate further sub-surface remains.

This type of monument represents a defensive strategy that was only in favour for a matter of months during the Second World War and as such helps to document the rapid changes in development of anti-invasion defences in this period. The fact that relatively ephemeral structures survive and that there is cropmark and earthwork evidence for the anti-tank ditch over much of its length helps to complete the picture of how these defences were intended to work. Referring to the defences around the Lodge Hill Ordnance Depot, Foot states 'It is clear that this was one of the most intensively defended areas of the South East', and that there is 'a very good survival of hardened field defences within the area'. He also notes that it is a 'most interesting and important section of stop line' as it links known points of area defence and created extra defences for Lodge Hill on two sides (2006, 410). Foot concludes that the area is important 'not only in terms of the number of defence works of different types that it contains but also in the way it still forms a coherent pattern of defence linked to its topography' and that the hedgerows concealing defence works still remain as an integral part of the defence landscape. Foot makes this statement following the conclusion of the Defence Areas Project, a national study of anti-invasion landscapes commissioned by English Heritage (carried out from April 2002 to June 2004).

The evidence described in this report demonstrates how the stop line defences worked within and with the landscape. Individual elements have been protected through listing or scheduling and the value of these individual features is increased when considered together with the other structurers and earthworks of the Hoo stop line. Smith notes that the range of features that survive here, including pillboxes and obstacle blocks, is 'memorialising this line' (Smith 2011, 182). The features mapped from historic and modern aerial photographs add to the depth of that picture. The presence of the structures associated with the stop line in the landscape is a direct link between the present day and with the fear of invasion experienced by a previous generation." (1)

<1> 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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