Monument record TQ 77 SW 1164 - A possible Second World War gun emplacement or light any aircraft battery

TQ 7466 7224. A possible Second World War gun emplacement or light any aircraft battery is visible as earthworks on aerial photographs taken in the 1940s, and has been mapped as part of the English Heritage: Hoo Peninsula Landscape Project. The site is roughly rectangular, comprising a sunken interior space enclosed by a low earthwork bank about 13m long by 11m wide. It is situated near the foot of the west facing slope between Islingham Farm and Haven Street Wood, and could have provided protection for the many sites on Deangate Ridge, including Chattenden Barracks and Magazines and the Lodge Hill Ordnance Depot (Monument 1077634). The gun emplacement recorded here is probably associated with a military installation or anti aircraft gun emplacement 75m to the west (Monument 1546706). (1-3)

The earthworks could have been associated with military training activity. They lie within an extensive military training site dating primarily to the First World War, but also used during the Second World War. (4)

This gun emplacement is visible on aerial photographs taken in 1942 and may be the anti aircraft gun shown at approximately this location on a German military map based on aerial photographic evidence and dated 20 November 1940. (5)

<1> RAF, 1942, NMR RAF/HLA/617 6100 20-JUN-1942 (Photograph). SKE56049.

<2> RAF, 1947, NMR RAF/CPE/UK/1923 3086 16-JAN-1947 (Photograph). SKE56030.

<3> Royal Air Force, 1952, NMR RAF/58/856 4162 24-APR-1952 (Photograph). SKE58654.

<4> English Heritage, 2013, Hoo Peninsula, Kent. Hoo Peninsula Historic Landscape Project (Bibliographic reference). SKE31432.

<5> Foot W., 2006, Beaches, fields, streets and hills: the anti-invasion landscape of England, 1940 (Bibliographic reference). SKE55976.

<6> Historic England, Archive Material (Archive). SKE58388.