Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

The sites of possible Second World War anti-aircraft gun emplacements are visible on aerial photographs of 1941 as earthworks at three points along the beach at New Romney. These features were mapped from aerial photographs as part of the South East RCZAS NMP project.

Monument Types

• ANTI AIRCRAFT BATTERY (Modern - 1939 AD to 1945 AD)
• ANTI AIRCRAFT GUN EMPLACEMENT (Modern - 1939 AD to 1945 AD)
• GUN EMPLACEMENT (Modern - 1939 AD to 1945 AD)

Full description

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The overall centre-point for this group of three separate anti-aircraft gun emplacements or batteries is TR 0842 2414. They are visible over a 335m stretch of the seafront at New Romney. They are all located immediately behind a single line of contemporary anti-invasion barbed wire (Monument Number 1533960).

The southernmost possible anti-aircraft gun emplacement is centred at TR 0840 2399, and consists of a row of four mounds with central hollows in the top. The closely-spaced sub-circular mounds measure six to eight metres in diameter. They are immediately adjacent to the site of a later, much larger, possible anti-aircraft gun emplacement (Monument Number 1533926). The group of four small mounds recorded here had been removed without trace by the time the newer emplacement was visible in 1946. It seems likely that the larger site superceded the smaller group of possible gun emplacements.

The central possible anti-aircraft gun emplacement is centred at TR 0841 2407, just 44m to the NNE of the first group of earthworks described above. These earthworks have the same appearance and size as those described above, but consist of a row of five mounds, with a possible blast shelter visible as a banked rectilinear enclosure just behind (inland from) the northernmost mound of the group.

The northernmost possible anti-aircraft gun emplacement is centred at TR 0845 2429, between the barbed wire defences mentioned above, and a possible contemporary minefield (Monument Number 1533969). The earthworks here also consist of small sub-circular mounds with a hole in the top. They measure five to six metres across, and are arranged in a row of three along the seafront.

These defences appear to have been contemporary with a group of three gun emplacements located against the edge of Marine Parade (Monument Number 1477737); a possible minefield (Monument Number 1533969); and two lines of anti-invasion scaffolding (one beside the road, and one further out on Romney Sands: Monument Numbers 1533929 and 1533948).

These three separate possible anti-aircraft gun emplacements are all visible as extant earthworks on vertical aerial photographs of 1941. By the time of the vertical aerial photographs of 1946, they had all been removed without trace (1-2).

<1> RAF, 1941, NMR RAF/26L/UK/924 9203-4 06-DEC-1941 (Photograph). SWX23865.

<2> 1946, NMR CPE/UK/1752 4002-3 21-SEPT-1946 (Photograph). SWX23760.

Sources and further reading

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