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

The surviving World War II coastal defences at Pegwell Bay include a Type 24 pillbox, a series of flat-topped pyramidal anti-tank pimples, often called ‘Dragon’s Teeth’, and tall concrete anti-tank cylinders. These structures stretch for nearly 2 kilometres along the coast north of the River Stour.

Approximately 200 metres north-east of the vehicle entrance to Pegwell Bay Country Park, between the road and a cycle track, is a row of 61 anti-tank pimples. These are flat-topped pyramidal concrete blocks, approximately 0.6 metres high, alternating between square-plan pyramid shapes and more box-shaped, rectangular forms. Additional pimples may remain hidden in the bank to the south.

Approximately 660 metres south-west from the southern end of the pimples, and just east of the A256, stands a hexagonal Type 24 pillbox, a common design from World War II. It was constructed to cover a sluice which led down to the coast in a north-east direction. The pillbox is built of concrete and features stepped Bren gun embrasures in five of its sides. The rear wall, which is longer, has an entrance flanked by two pistol loop-holes. The roof is reinforced with Hy-Rib steel mesh, now visible internally due to concrete corrosion. An unusual feature is the presence of slots below two of the embrasures, likely intended to allow fire to be directed into the sluice at the foot of the pillbox. Surviving timber battens indicate the former location of wooden firing shelves beside some of the embrasures. The interior lacks an inbuilt Y-shaped anti-ricochet wall. While other pillboxes along this coastline have been demolished, this one remains.

Further south, for approximately 450 metres, is a line of concrete anti-tank cylinders, likely made using civilian drainage pipes and standing approximately 1 metre high. These begin 330 metres south of the pillbox and run along the line of the Boarded Groin, a 14th-century earth bank built as a sea wall in 1365, extending to the edge of the playing fields north of the River Stour. Around 300 of these cylinders remain; many still have the steel fixings for barbed wire that would have been set into the top.