Second World War Gun Site, Brentwood Road, Holland-on-Sea (EHER 21170)

Second World War Gun Site, now destroyed.

WWII Defence of Clacton survey Contemporary records state, ‘Dannert and other wiring surrounding gun site. Preston Park Estate, off Brentwood Road, Holland-on-Sea’, ‘Dannert and other wiring surrounding gun site. Plots Nos. 30-32 and 40-50, Ipswich Road, Holland-on-Sea. Map ref ??3347’ and ‘Dannert and other wiring surrounding gun site. Plots Nos. 80-90 Slade Road, Holland-on-Sea. Map ref. ??3347’. (Mil. Ed.) <1> This gun site is recalled locally, standing north of Brentwood Road on ground undeveloped at that time. Concrete emplacements, underground rooms and ‘a circle of bolts projecting from the concrete floor’ are mentioned. It is not known what type of guns were emplaced here, although local memory mentions 1914-18 naval guns and howitzers. They were fired, in practice, on a number of occasions, the vibration causing some damage to at least one nearby house. <2> <3> The site itself can be seen on aerial photographs taken in July 1941 and July 1946. In 1941 the site had been cleared, long and narrow, stretching from Brentwood Road to Slade Road, although both were no more than grassy tracks. No emplacements can be seen but there may well have been mobile guns there. What appears to be lorries, three, are parked by the roadside at the entrance to the site. In 1946, two gun emplacements at TM 1944 1667 and TM 1943 1669 can be clearly seen, one-behind-the-other facing north. Each has a circular platform with, apparently, a central holdfast. Immediately alongside each, on its S side, is what is probably a sunken magazine with ramps leading up to ground level. Shells would have been unloaded from lorries onto trolleys, wheeled down the ramp to the magazine, from where they could be fed to the guns. <4> <5> An Ordnance Survey map dated 1951 shows both emplacements in diagrammatic form. In addition, a small building is shown at TM 1946 1664, on the S side of Brentwood Road, immediately opposite the gun site. This is recalled locally as ‘brick-built with long slits’. An Ordnance Survey map dated 1953 but revised in 1961 shows just one emplacement surviving; the southern emplacement by Brentwood Road, and the small building, having been demolished to make way for housing. <6> <2 <7> Site visit by F. Nash August 2007, Houses have been built across the entire area. The position of the gun site is where Nos. 31 and 33 Brentwood Road and Nos. 42 and 44 Slade Road now are. Standing by the former site, looking downhill to the north, to Picker’s Ditch and up the hillside towards Sladbury’s Lane, it is clear that the guns were positioned here to guard against an attack on Holland-on-Sea from inland. One-behind-the-other on the hillside, they would have been able to fire across a wide front to prevent the seafront defences, and the 6-inch coastal artillery site (SMR 10783) little more than half-a-mile away, being taken in the rear. <8>