Type 28 Wwii Pillbox On Seawall Of River Medway At Tq7924471695

Type 28 WWII Pillbox on Seawall of River Medway at Hoo St Werburgh

This is a Type 28 pillbox, built in 1940 as an anti-tank gun emplacement. It stands below and behind the sea wall on the north bank of the Medway estuary, at the southern end of the Hoo Stop-line.

The pillbox is rectangular with chamfered corners and a flat concrete roof with a chamfered edge. It is constructed in yellow brick, largely laid in stretcher courses, with concrete used structurally. The single large entrance faces south. Type 28s are notably large pillboxes, requiring a much bigger entrance than infantry pillboxes to allow a gun to be wheeled in. The main gun embrasure is positioned on the north side and has a concrete lintel with a stepped raked concrete aperture. A two or six-pounder quick-firing gun would have occupied this position. Additional smaller embrasures for small arms fire are also present, each with concrete lintels and raked apertures. The interior is divided unequally into two rooms: the larger housed the gun, the smaller the ammunition. The building is oriented so the main field of fire runs north along the stop-line and anti-tank ditch.

The Hoo Stop-line was a major defensive anti-invasion line stretching approximately eight miles between the River Thames near Cliffe and the River Medway south-east of Hoo St Werburgh. It was built from June 1940 onwards, following the defeat of British forces in Europe. The stop-line consisted of an artificial anti-tank ditch dug to join the Medway and Thames, supported by pillboxes, anti-tank rails and roadblocks. A War Office plan indicates the line contained a total of sixty infantry pillboxes and eighteen anti-tank pillboxes enclosing higher ground containing the Lodge Hill and Chattenden Ordnance Depots. Each component would have been encircled with barbed wire.

The stop-line was part of the broader GHQ (General Headquarters) Line, which ran from the North Somerset coast to east of London and then parallel with the east coast to Yorkshire. Stop-lines were primarily intended as anti-tank obstacles to check fast-moving armoured columns, and as prepared battlefields for the Field Army to defend in the event of invasion.

The Hoo Peninsula was heavily militarised during the Second World War. Hoo itself was designated a Defended Village in 1941 with a garrison of sixty-three men armed with anti-tank rifles and Bren guns. Kingshill Camp to the west housed a further hundred troops from the 347th Searchlight Battery, Royal Artillery. High Halstow village was another Defended Locality, and the Royal Navy Ammunition Store at Lodge Hill had a garrison of three hundred men. The low-lying topography and easy coastal access meant the stop-line provided essential man-made defence against tank invasion, with subtle changes in gradient and hedge lines used to position defensive components to best advantage in protecting the higher ground and ordnance depots. Local Home Guard units would have been responsible for supplying the pillboxes and assisting in manning roadblocks.