Site of Second World War Anti-Tank Pimples/Road Barrier, Orwell Road, Clacton-on-Sea (EHER 21221)

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

WWII Defence of Clacton survey Contemporary records state, “Concrete pimples and dannert wire. Kingsley Hotel, Marine Parade, Garden.” <1> Arial photograph, 1941 and Plan of War Time Defences, 1944 The Kingsley Hotel, No. 5 Marine Parade East, stood on the west corner of Orwell Road and the entry above refers to a 5-row fixed anti-tank pimple barrier which ran across Orwell Road to a hotel on the opposite corner, the Geisha Hotel. An aerial photograph taken in July 1941 shows this very clearly; perhaps 35 pimples can be seen. <2> <3> A ground-level photo taken during the Second World War (but of unknown date) shows, rarely, a close-up view of the road barrier. It was taken from a point 30/40 yards up Orwell Road facing the barrier and Marine Parade East beyond. More than 20 of the pimples can be counted stretching from the garden wall of the Kingsley Hotel, across the pavement and road to the far pavement and Geisha Hotel (although this extreme end of the barrier is out of view). Oddly, the pimples on the pavement are white or concrete coloured while those in the road have been painted or tarmacked black, probably as an attempt at camouflage. All of them are covered in barbed wire entanglements on metal stanchions. <4> On 10 November 1940 the Geisha Hotel was damaged by a bomb which fell close by on Marine Parade East. It is not known whether the ground-level photo of the road barrier was taken before or after this date. The bomb was one of a number which fell at the same time on the Comrades Club in Colne Road (now No. 9), ‘Yelvertoft’ in Colne Road (now No. 6) and ‘Oakdale’ in Orwell Road (now No. 3). The cleared bomb sites of the latter two can be made out on the 1941 aerial photograph. <5> Site visit by F. Nash, 2007 Nash noted that the Kingsley Hotel still survives, with an extension on the Orwell Road side, as the Ocean Club Hotel. The Geisha Hotel also survives although the side which runs along Orwell Road has changed considerably since World War Two. Nothing, however, remains of the road barrier. <6> As a comparison to the wartime ground-level photograph one photograph was taken in April 2007. <7>