There was a Second World War roadblock on Whitstable Road, Canterbury, near the Water Tower. This was road block No. 42 in a list of Road Blocks in the 43 Divisional area at the end of November 1940. This roadblock had been sited and the necessary materials were in place by 13 May 1940. It was on the Whitstable Road south east of the Junction with Neal’s Place Road. The north-west side of the block fell within the grounds of St Edmund’s School Canterbury, where the cubes still survive. It was to be built by the 9th Royal Fusiliers as a permanent road block; it had been sited and the materials were in place by 13 May 1940. There was a pillbox in the immediate vicinity, but this seems unlikely to have covered this roadblock because it (the pillbox) is yet further out of town – perhaps there were slit trenches or similar instead. The environs of the block can be seen very clearly on immediate post-war aerial photographs. To the north east, the obstacle was continued, by a row of large concrete blocks (extant), up to the end of the most south-westerly wing of St Edmund’s School. A single concrete block stood at the south-west side of the road. Beyond this, a wedge-shaped group of concrete pimples, perhaps about thirty, filled the gap between the road and the steep conical mound of the covered reservoir (in the water tower field).
Owner : Public
Publicly accessible : Yes
How accessed for survey :
Tourism Potential :
Condition : moderate
Date of visit :

John Herbert, Photograph by John Herbert (digital copy in project archive) (Photograph). SKE15484.

John Herbert, Photograph by John Herbert (digital copy in project archive) (Photograph). Ske15484.

43 Division General Staff, 01/01/40, War Diary 43 Division General Staff (Unpublished document). SKE15485.

43 Division General Staff, 01/01/40, War Diary 43 Division General Staff (Unpublished document). Ske15485.

9 Royal Fusiliers, 01/01/40, War Diary 9 Royal Fusiliers 1940 (Unpublished document). SKE15486.

9 Royal Fusiliers, 01/01/40, War Diary 9 Royal Fusiliers 1940 (Unpublished document). Ske15486.