Pair of Second World War Pillboxes, Stokesley Road

This listing describes a pair of Second World War pillboxes located on Stokesley Road, constructed in 1940. They are both Type 23 pillboxes made from reinforced concrete and have a rectangular plan.

The two pillboxes are situated approximately 335 meters apart, flanking Stokesley Road. The northern pillbox is oriented from north-east to south-west, while the southern one is aligned north-west to south-east. This positioning allowed for overlapping fields of fire, enabling sustained machine gun coverage across Stokesley Road and towards the two T-junctions on Middleton Road. Both pillboxes are identical, semi-sunken structures measuring 4.34 by 2.13 meters, with walls that are 38 centimeters thick and a 15-centimeter thick reinforced concrete roof over the front chamber. The front wall features a single wide gun embrasure raised just above ground level, while each side wall has a similar embrasure offset towards the front wall. The rear wall is solid and blind.

Internally, each pillbox is divided into two chambers, accessed by climbing over the rear wall into an open chamber that is 1.37 meters square and deep, with a concrete floor and a slender concrete post for mounting a light anti-aircraft machine-gun. Four concrete steps lead down against the left-hand side wall to a low narrow door that opens into a 1.83-meter square chamber with a flat concrete ceiling and wide embrasures in the front and side walls. The walls were shuttered with timber planks, leaving vertical witness marks. A concrete shelf with a rear lip spans the width of the chamber against the front wall, allowing occupants to fire a tripod-mounted machine-gun through any of the three embrasures. The southern pillbox is partially infilled.