Former Second World War Civil Defence Building

Former Second World War civil defence building, probably a fire watchers' post or air raid shelter, built to serve the neighbouring brickworks.

MATERIALS: of brick with a reinforced-concrete slab roof.

PLAN: the building is circular-on-plan with a segmental blast wall on the north side.

EXTERIOR: the building is semi-sunken below the level of the surrounding ground surface and embanked with earth. On its north side there are two baffled doorways (one probably an entrance and the other an emergency exit) protected by a segmental blast wall supported by angled buttresses. The walling of the shelter is predominantly blind except for two horizontal observation slits placed immediately below the roof line on the south-east and south-west sides. The reinforced concrete roof now bears slight scarring around its circumference.

INTERIOR: the interior is divided in half into two semi-circular compartments by a brick wall which also supports the roof. The west side of the wall contains a smoke-blacked niche which was probably used to house a candle holder. At the south end of the wall there is a round-headed emergency exit which allowed the occupants of one chamber to move to the other should one of the entrances become blocked. When in use it would have been enclosed by weakly-bonded brickwork which was designed to be easily broken down, but this brickwork is now missing. Dark inclined witness marks on the walls to either side of the doorways probably indicate that the shelter was equipped with roll-down anti-gas curtains.