Second World War pillbox, Apple Tree Cottage, Great Oakley (EHER 21407)

This pillbox is a particularly good example of an FW3/22 pillbox built to defend the village during a time of national emergency. Manned by the Home Guard, it would have acted as a strongpoint for the road barrier alongside it, denying the route through the village to enemy forces. Anti-tank cabling has been found, rarely, elsewhere in Essex but always anchored to a concrete block. This is probably the only example in the county of cabling anchored through the wall of a pillbox. On grounds of condition, location, typicality of type and rarity of the integral anti-tank feature, every effort should be made to ensure the continued survival of this important part of local history and heritage.

War Time Contraventions 1968 shows that Great Oakley was defended by a number of fortifications during World War Two. <1> These included pillboxes, barbed wire, gun positions and spigot mortar emplacements. However, it is clear that there must have been more than are listed in these wartime records. One of these unrecorded defence works has recently been revealed, a pillbox which has lain beneath dense thicket in the front garden of Apple Tree Cottage very close to the main road at the west end of the village. Visited in September 2011 it is a concrete, hexagonal, type FW3/22, in particularly good condition. It measures 12' 3" across, with each face 7' 2" long. The thickness of the concrete is 15", standard for this type of bullet-proof, as against shell-proof pillbox. There is a recessed loophole in each face, typically of the 10" x 12" type with steel side pieces, fanning out to an exterior measurement of 20" x 12". The low entrance is on the S side, dog-legged, with anti-ricochet walling facing the opening. Inside the condition is, again, in good condition. There is, surprisingly, no central pillar. It may be that this has been removed either during or since the war. Around the walls the remains of wooden battening for supporting a shelf beneath each loophole still survive. The most surprising feature, unique among the hundreds of pillboxes so far surveyed in Essex, is the discovery of steel anti-tank cabling concreted through the upright structure of the wall which faces the road. This cabling is in four lengths, shackled in two pairs, projecting from the wall about a foot from the floor. The length of the upper pair is 20" and the length of the lower pair is 24". The gauge of the cable is a substantial one and an eighth inches. During the war this cabling would have stretched across the road as two continuous lengths, each looped to a concrete block on the N side. Here, they would have been passed through two 6" holes, using ceramic pipes, one-above-the-other through the block. On the approach of German armour they would have been pulled through and looped over a steel spigot on the top of the block to present a tight barrier to the enemy vehicles. It is probable that the cut off ends of this cabling still lie outside the pillbox beneath the low bank of soil. Local memory still recalls concrete blocks on the N side of the road. Ten photos taken of site. <2> SITE ASSESSMENT: This pillbox is a particularly good example of an FW3/22 pillbox built to defend the village during a time of national emergency. Manned by the Home Guard, it would have acted as a strongpoint for the road barrier alongside it, denying the route through the village to enemy forces. Anti-tank cabling has been found, rarely, elsewhere in Essex but always anchored to a concrete block. This is probably the only example in the county of cabling anchored through the wall of a pillbox. On grounds of condition, location, typicality of type and rarity of the integral anti-tank feature, every effort should be made to ensure the continued survival of this important part of local history and heritage.