Bofors Tower south of Burntwood Lane

MATERIALS: Reinforced concrete

DESCRIPTION: The Bofors Tower is located south of Burntwood Lane in a pasture field. It comprises two elevated reinforced concrete platforms located immediately adjacent to each other. A Bofors anti-aircraft gun would have been mounted on one platform and its range predictor (to calculate enemy aircraft speed and height and thus ensure the accuracy of the gun) on the other so that the gun’s recoil did not disrupt the predictor. The rationale for erecting Bofors guns and their ancillary equipment on towers was to elevate them above the surrounding landscape and enable a 360 degree field of fire against low-flying and fast-moving enemy aircraft.

The tower is built of reinforced concrete and is constructed of concrete piers and cross-braces rising in three sections to the gun and predictor platforms. The piers appear square in section and the cross-braces are reinforced at the joins. Aerial photographs offer an opportunity to view the platforms from above: combined they have a broadly rectangular footprint although with a small projection at the north-west corner. The platforms were accessed by ladder stairs which were removed soon after the war although the platform projection and a further projecting piece of concrete on the west side at high level suggests the position of part of the stairs. It appears that the eastern platform was the gun platform as a central circular mark, which appears to be the ghost of the gun holdfast, is visible on aerial photographs.