Exploring Kent's Past

It should not be assumed that this site is publicly accessible and it may be on private property. Do not trespass.

Monument details

Summary

A small Second World War military site including slit trenches, gun emplacements, a pillbox, barbed wire, anti-tank cubes and bomb craters is visible on vertical aerial photographs of 1941 as structures and earthworks at the point where the Dengemarsh Gut Shafts meet the seafront. The structures and earthworks appear to have been removed by the time of the next available vertical aerial photograph of 1958. These features have been mapped from aerial photographs as part of the South East RCZAS NMP project.

Monument Types

• ANTI TANK OBSTACLE (Modern - 1939 AD to 1945 AD)
• BARBED WIRE OBSTRUCTION (Modern - 1939 AD to 1945 AD)
• BOMB CRATER (Modern - 1939 AD to 1945 AD)
• PILLBOX (Modern - 1939 AD to 1945 AD)
• TRENCH (Modern - 1939 AD to 1945 AD)
• WEAPONS PIT (Modern - 1939 AD to 1945 AD)

Full description

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This Second World War military site is centred at TR 0644 1674, and extends across an area measuring approximately 570m east to west and 375m north to south. A line of anti-tank cubes continues up the Dengmarsh Sewer to the NNW, but is beyond the edge of the project boundary of the South East RCZAS NMP, so was not included in the transcription.

This site includes a wiggly network of slit trenches linking a range of gun emplacements, weapons pits, and a pillbox. A line of concrete anti-tank cubes is visible on a SSE to NNW alignment through the centre of the site, along the line of the Dengemarsh Gut Shafts. The site is protected to the east and west by barbed wire, and to the seafront (south) by anti-invasion beach scaffolding (Monument Numbers 1538537, 1533475).

Three large bomb craters are visible to the east of the main site at TR 0679 1688, TR 0684 1679, and TR 0744 1671. The last of these three no lies beneath the Power Station at Dungeness. The first two are still faintly visible on the most recently available vertical aerial photographs of 2007.

The structures and earthworks of the small defended Second World War military site are no longer visible by the time of vertical aerial photographs of 1958 (1-2).

<1> RAF, 1941, NMR RAF/GHQ/106 61-2 14-MAY-1941 (Photograph). SWX23916.

<2> RAF, 1958, NMR RAF/543/328 0104-5 09-JUL-1958 (Photograph). SWX23869.

Sources and further reading

Related records