Site of Second World War Anti-Tank Pimples/Road Barrier, Pier Avenue, Clacton-on-Sea (EHER 21219)

Site of Second World War Anti-Tank Pimples/Road Barrier, now destroyed.

WWII Defence of Clacton survey Contemporary records state, “Road Barrier (pimples and wire). End of Pier Avenue. Map ref. 626328.” (Mil. Ed.) The entry date is 1940. <1> Oddly, there is a second entry for Pier Avenue which states, “Concrete tank trap. Criterion Restaurant. Pier Avenue, Clacton on Sea”. This is dated September 1942, long after the road barriers were built in Clacton. The Criterion Restaurant stood 60/70 yards up Pier Avenue and this entry is therefore inexplicable, perhaps a simple error intended to document a pimple or two on Cornerhouse Café land. Aerial photograph, 1941 An aerial photograph taken in July 1941 shows this barrier, a five-row fixed pimple type, very clearly. It ran across the road, very close to its junction with Marine Parade West, between what was the Cornerhouse Café on the west side to the Royal Hotel on the E side. Around 50 pimples in all can be made out. <2> Site visit by Fred Nash in 2007 The Cornerhouse café is now Tom Pepper’s and the Royal Hotel partly comprises Wetherspoon’s. <3>