Battery Observation Post

1218/0/10013 29-OCT-01

BAWDSEY EAST LANE Battery Observation Post at TM 358 401

II

Battery Observation Post. 1940. Reinforced concrete. Two-storey building, with steps down to balcony at first-floor level; cantilevered roof over balcony, which views out to sea; entrance to ground floor immediately below, with the wide opening beneath balcony. High precision range finders were housed in the upper storey, which acted as the centre of communications with the searchlights positions and guns. A Bar and Stroud range finder was housed in the lower part of the building. This building formed the operational focal point of the Emergency Coastal Defence Battery here, which was one of many erected in 1940 to provide additional protection to harbour installations. The BOP served the gun emplacements which lie on the upper shore line approx. 100m to the east, and a series of mobile guns stationed on the marshes. This structure forms an integral part of one of the most complete 20th century coastal batteries in existence (and 7 out of 116 Emergency Batteries), relating to the rapid enhancement of Britain's coastal defence in the early stages of the Second World War, in addition to a nationally-important grouping of coastal defences on the Suffolk coast dating from the Napoleonic period.

Listing NGR: TM3569040071