Norfolk Heritage Explorer

Location

Full description

February 2006. Norfolk NMP.
A World War Two military camp is visible as structures, buildings and earthworks on aerial photographs (S1)-(S5), centred at TG 5025 1797. It was almost certainly the domestic site associated with the radar and ‘Oboe’ station located approximately 150m to its north (NHER 35862), although it may have comprised other facilities or installations as well. By September 1940 new domestic sites were to be located ½ to 1 mile away from technical radar sites, as discussed in Dobinson 2000 (S6); both the camp at Winterton and the radar station itself were constructed after 1940 (neither are visible on aerial photographs taken in December 1940, (S7)), and there is a gap of approximately 700m between the main cluster of radar (rather than ‘Oboe’) buildings (around TG 4992 1870) and the central group of huts described here (at TG 5021 1799).

Most of the features visible at the site were huts. Six curved-profile huts, probably Nissen huts, are visible at the southern end of the site (at TG 5029 1779). Some of the concrete bases on which they stood are visible on aerial photographs taken in 1952 (S4). Two further curved-profile huts are visible to the southeast (at TG 5035 1776). These look slightly different and were perhaps a different make to the huts already described; the western hut had a gantry or similar structure at its southern end (S5). It seems probable that, as a group, these huts housed many of the domestic facilities for the radar station and that most were accommodation huts. They lack the more elaborate arrangement of structures visible to the north.

A second cluster of curved-profile huts and other structures is visible at TG 5021 1799. Here several of the huts were longer and the arrangement of structures more complex, suggesting that these perhaps housed communal facilities and/or an operations block. Another curved-profile hut, with a tall structure (perhaps a mast?) at its southern end, is visible at TG 5021 1808; structures with pitched or flat roofs at TG 5016 1821, TG 5029 1801, TG 5029 1799 and TG 5027 1796, all of which had been demolished by 1952 (S4), were probably military in origin but could instead be non-military constructions. Other notable features include three possible tents, visible in 1945 (S2), at TG 5017 1804; three masts (at TG 5016 1808, TG 5016 1807 and TG 5017 1804) erected between May 1944 (S1) and September 1945 (S2)-(S3), most clearly visible as long shadows and surrounded by small concrete structures to which their guys were probably attached; and a circular, embanked structure at TG 5023 1795 which was probably a water tank. Two small enclosures are visible: a vegetation pattern at TG 5022 1792 may indicate the presence of a fence or barbed wire compound surrounding a concrete platform, perhaps originally occupied by a structure; a square enclosure at TG 5021 1804 may also have been defined by barbed wire but what it surrounded cannot be made out. Slit trenches at TG 5025 1797, TG 5028 1793 and TG 5030 1787 may have been dug as practice trenches or air raid shelters. A gate or similar barrier is visible at TG 5040 1768 in 1945.

The site was dismantled after the war. There is no evidence on recent aerial photographs of the site, e.g. (S8), that any traces of it are now visible on the ground.
S. Tremlett (NMP), 8 February 2006.

At TG50371776 within the southern area of the camp was a depression stated to be a bomb crater. No evidence for this identification was given (S9) (S10) in file and when visited in 1991 before destruction there was nothing to differentiated from the surrounding hollows in the dunes although it was full of rubbish.
E. Rose (NLA), 25 June 2007.

Monument Types

• ACCOMMODATION HUT (World War Two - 1939 AD to 1945 AD)
• AIR RAID SHELTER? (World War Two - 1939 AD to 1945 AD)
• ANTENNA ARRAY (World War Two - 1939 AD to 1945 AD)
• BARBED WIRE OBSTRUCTION? (World War Two - 1939 AD to 1945 AD)
• BOMB CRATER (World War Two - 1939 AD to 1945 AD)
• BUILDING PLATFORM (World War Two - 1939 AD to 1945 AD)
• ENCLOSURE (World War Two - 1939 AD to 1945 AD)
• HUT (World War Two - 1939 AD to 1945 AD)
• MILITARY BUILDING (World War Two - 1939 AD to 1945 AD)
• MILITARY CAMP (World War Two - 1939 AD to 1945 AD)
• NISSEN HUT? (World War Two - 1939 AD to 1945 AD)
• OPERATIONS BLOCK? (World War Two - 1939 AD to 1945 AD)
• PRACTICE TRENCH? (World War Two - 1939 AD to 1945 AD)
• SLIT TRENCH (World War Two - 1939 AD to 1945 AD)
• TRENCH (World War Two - 1939 AD to 1945 AD)
• WATER TANK (World War Two - 1939 AD to 1945 AD)

Associated Finds - none

Protected Status - none

Sources and further reading

Related records

Find out more...

• Parish Summary: Hemsby (Parish Summary)
• Parish Summary: Winterton on Sea (Parish Summary)