Monument record TQ 77 SE 1500 - First World War fieldwork, visible as earthworks and cropmarks

TQ 7555 7388. A First World War fieldwork, visible as earthworks and cropmarks on aerial photographs taken in the 1940s, has been mapped as part of the English Heritage: Hoo Peninsula Landscape Project. The site is a small rectangular earthwork enclosure 22.6m by 22.7m, with circular projecting bastions at the northeast and southwest corners and additional linear outworks or outer banks to the west. It is situated on Rough Shaw, the north facing slopes of Deangate Ridge, above Lodge Hill Ordnance Depot (Monument 1077634), and was probably associated with military training activity in the area around Chattenden Barracks. This is one of several earthworks enclosures or redoubts noted on a War Department map of Lodge Hill field defences, 1914. Annotations dated September 1915 describe this site as a "defensive position with barbed wire and open trenches". Other similar sites noted on the War Department map are Monuments 1546125, 1546157, 1546165, 1546168. This redoubt does not appear to have been in active use during the Second World War, although a circular pillbox of that date (Monument 1418707) was constructed near one of the outer banks. (1-3)

<1> RAF, 1944, NMR US/7GR/LOC348 2065 27-MAY-1944 (Photograph). SKE55973.

<2> RAF, 1946, NMR RAF/106G/UK/1702 3062 27-AUG-1946 (Photograph). SKE58419.

<3> Public Record Office, 1914, PRO: WO 78/4400 Chatham Field Defences 8.11.1914 (Archive). SKE58402.