World War II anti-tank pimples and cylinders and associated pillbox at Pegwell Bay

The surviving World War II defences at Pegwell Bay include a Type 24 pillbox; the low pyramidal anti-tank pimples, known colloquially as ‘Dragon’s Teeth’; and tall anti-tank cylinders. They are spread along the coast for nearly 2km north of the River Stour.

Starting from the north, the structures are as follows:

Anti-tank pimples: situated between the eastern edge of the road and a cycle track, approximately 200m north-east of the vehicle entrance to Pegwell Bay Country Park. They comprise a single row of 61 flat-topped pyramidal concrete blocks, approximately 0.6m high, and roughly alternating between square-plan pyramid-shaped blocks and more box-shaped, rectangular blocks. Additional pimples may survive in the bank to the south.

Pillbox: situated just east of the A256, approximately 660m south-west from the southern end of the pimples. It is a hexagonal Type 24 pillbox, the most common type constructed during World War II, and was sited to cover a sluice which ran down to the coast in a north-east direction. Built of concrete it has stepped Bren gun embrasures in five of the sides and an entrance flanked by two pistol loop-holes in the longer rear wall. The roof is reinforced with Hy-Rib steel reinforcing mesh which can now be seen in the interior due to corrosion of the concrete. An unusual feature is the provision of slots below two of the embrasures, likely to have been incorporated to enable fire to be directed into the drainage sluice which runs at the foot the pillbox. Timber battens for a wooden firing shelf survive either side of some of the embrasures. The interior does not have an inbuilt Y-shaped anti-ricochet wall. A number of other pillboxes along this stretch of coast have been demolished.

Cylindrical anti-tank defences: these comprise a single line of concrete cylinders (probably utilising civilian drainage pipes) approximately 1m high, which run for some 450m from a point 330m south of the pillbox. They roughly follow the line of the Boarded Groin, a C14 earth bank erected as a sea wall in 1365, to the edge of the playing fields just north of the banks of the River Stour. Approximately 300 survive. Many of the dome-topped cylinders retain the steel fixing for barbed wire set into the top.