Possible site of Second World War searchlight battery at Causeway Hall, Ridgewell (EHER 83084)

Now destroyed. The site of a Second World War searchlight battery at Ridgewell, thought to have been located near Causeway Hall. It was manned by 33 Searchlight Regiment. The battery was operational from October 1941. It formed part of a network of searchlights named Area DN02, which along with another such area (DN01) formed a defensive belt in the Hertfordshire-Essex-Cambridgeshire-Suffolk borders area. Searchlight sites typically comprised a small ring-ditch to provide the crew with shelter during an air raid, a predictor emplacement for calculating the height and range of targets, a light anti-aircraft machine gun pit, a generator and hutted accommodation for the crew. The monument may be an alternative location for EHER 7034.

NRHE data transfer: The site of a Second World War searchlight battery at Ridgewell, situated at NGR TL 731 415/ MGR M 181601. It was manned by 33 Searchlight Regiment. The battery was operational from October 1941. It formed part of a network of searchlights named Area DN02, which along with another such area (DN01) formed a defensive belt in the Hertfordshire-Essex-Cambridgeshire-Suffolk borders area. <1> The locational information provided in source <1> places the site to the east of Causeway Hall. <2> <3> Searchlight sites typically comprised a small ring-ditch to provide the crew with shelter during an air raid, a predictor emplacement for calculating the height and range of targets, a light anti-aircraft machine gun pit, a generator and hutted accommodation for the crew. <4> Information from a landowner in Ridgewell CP [parish] passed to Essex HER notes that there was a Second World War searchlight battery and other military buildings at approximately TL 704 401: it is unclear if this could be an alternative location for the same battery or a different one. See EHER 7034. <5>