Late 1940s or 1950s observation post, 'Z2', between Fisherman's Head and Eastwick Head, Foulness Island (EHER 19649)

A three-storey observation tower. The bottom two storeys are built of concrete, square in plan, and date from between 1949 and 1955. The third storey was added at a later, unknown, date, and is built from brick.

May 2004. Site visit and desktop research. On the wall between Fisherman's Head and Eastwick Head stands a three-storey observation tower. The bottom two storeys are built of concrete, square in plan. The bottom floor has a single room with a steel door. The second floor, approached by concrete steps, also has a single room but this has a small look-out slot in the north wall. It can be seen that originally the observation post was a two-storey structure with a wide look-out position through the north wall of the second storey room. This was subsequently concreted up when the third storey was added at a later date. The third storey is built of brick, approached by wooden steps. On two sides of the north-east corner of the single room there is a wide observation window looking over both the land and sea. Beneath the window (only the window frames now remain) there is a wooden work surface. Hung outside the west and across the top of the window are steel plates. All rooms have electrical fittings. At the rear is a small brick-built toilet attached to the main structure. The height of the building is 6m 80cms on its west side (behind the sea wall) and 4m 80cms on its east side (on top of the sea wall). A drawing of the structure is in the EHER. <1> The building was an observation post, numbered 'Z2', for monitoring proximity fused shells fired from Church End Battery eastwards along the range 'corridor'. Plans of the site show the construction of the first two storeys to be between 1949 and 1955. The date of the third floor addition is not known. The building fell into disuse when a new replacement was built in 1980. <2> Nine photos. <3> Site assessment: After a site visit, recording and assessment, no archaeological recommendations by the Heritage Conservation Branch, ECC, were made.