The Historic Defences Committee: much has been achieved… and will again move forward

By Victor Smith, Retired Chair

I am grateful to Colin and Sean Welch, Robert Hall, Paul Tritton and Clive Holden for compiling their informative reports of their trecent work on Kent’s historic defences which appeared in the Spring 2020 (No. 113) issue of the Society’s Newsletter. I hope that these will encourage others to want to find out more about this fascinating subject. These reports appeared against the background of my having to step down, without notice, as Chair of the Historic Defences Committee (HDC) following sudden health issues and an expected very lengthy period for recovery, still not over.

On the plus side, this presents an excellent opportunity for someone else to take the helm: from time to time, it is good to have a change, with new ideas and approaches.

Unfortunately, this has come at the same time as the Covid 19 pandemic which has constrained many of the Society’s activities.

The aims and aspirations of the Historic Defences Committee are described in its online site. All periods are open, although most interest so far has been in the post-medieval, especially the 20th century. Much has been achieved. Activities have varied from personal interest projects, and ones shared between more than one member and between members and others. These have been taken forward, with excellent results, through research into archives and fieldwork. But a great deal more is possible, particularly with the decision of the Society to move forward with Special Interest Groups, of which the HDC is to be one.

Top

Fig 1: Victor Smith, Retired Chair of Historic Defences Committee Bottom

Fig 2: First World War defences at St Margaret-at-Cliffe, near Dover

Once so transformed, this liberating development should allow for considerable expansion of the membership and to some exciting possibilities.

THE GREAT WAR

The HDC has been a publication route for cooperative ventures with others, beginning with the article ‘Britain’s First World War Defences’ in After the Battle (2014). A well- received joint conference in 2017 between the Council for Kentish Archaeology and the Society on the home defence of Kent and the south-east during the Great War, followed a report on this subject in Arch. Cant., for 2016, written by HDC members and others. It broke new ground in presenting a better understanding of the triad of Kent’s land, sea and air defence, the findings being of both regional and national value. Not mentioned in the findings, if you placed all the home defence and training trenches in Britain end to end, they would have reached over half-way from the Belgian coast to Switzerland. Within Kent, backed by the home defence army with artillery and machine-guns, there were multiple trench lines and systems. These were at both vital coastal areas and in swathes inland, leaving substantial survival in the form of buried archaeology.

This is strikingly traceable through aerial photography (especially LIDAR) and may also be seen from ground survey. Concrete remains are surviving, such as a small number of pillboxes at various locations and a coastal defence battery on the Isle of Sheppey.

During this research, it was discovered that a pontoon bridge

Above

Fig 3: Complex of First World War trench defences at Warden Point, Isle of Sheppey Below, left

Fig 4: First World War trench defences, Isle of Sheppey

Below, right

Fig 5: Pontoon Bridge at Gravesend

between Gravesend and Tilbury had been an integral element of the defence lines to the south and east of London. A report on the bridge was published in Arch.

Cant. for 2019. Air defence exerted itself in the form of amazing lines of concentric defence radiating out from London, leading in Kent to the positioning of 40 airfields and landing grounds, masses of anti-aircraft gun batteries and searchlights, and the first sound mirrors to detect enemy aircraft

at a distance. These defence systems would have further evolved had the war continued. Sea defence involved the positioning of defence flotillas, including heavy gun monitors and a panoply of other warships. There were coastal defence batteries, booms across waterways and minefields,

especially in the English Channel to prevent navigation of the latter by an enemy. Concrete forts were being built to float then lower into position in the Channel, in connection with net and mine defences. Although not widely known, some Kentish ports saw action, having been bombarded by ships of the German fleet. Naval defence around this corner of England would benefit from continuing research.

THE KENT COUNTY COUNCIL DISTRICT SURVEY OF THE 20TH-CENTURY DEFENCES

HDC members have contributed to the five studies so far completed of the twentieth-century defences of the county, each having the borders of the council district concerned.

For continuity, they have been framed with similar chronological/ contextual/analytical components.

The Second World War was vividly transformative in the methods of land warfare. Not least was the emergence of the Blitzkrieg form of attack, possible in the event of invasion, with the threat

Top to bottom

Fig 6: First World War lines of concentric defence radiating out from London

Fig 7: Second World War anti-invasion defences Medway

Fig 8: Second World War anti-invasion defences Thameside

Fig 9: Second World War heavy and light anti-aircraft guns Thameside

of overwhelming shock assaults by dive-bombers, tanks and mechanized forces (although some horsepower could also have been used). In a lethally coordinated way, this method had been effective in German campaigns across the Continent in 1940. General Ironside’s epic creation of home defence stop lines in the summer of 1940, included anti-tank ditches, pillboxes, roadblocks and the first of the nodal points to defend important roads convergences, especially in towns. These systems were subsequently enhanced by an expanded network, including further nodal points, defended cross-roads and villages, with more besides. This was intended to delay an enemy land thrust and to buy time for counter-attacks by increasingly mobile home forces and bombers. There was a vast number of anti-invasion sites in Kent, with a myriad of ancillary components. An exciting possibility would be to complete the study of the remaining council districts and to produce a comprehensive map showing in detail all the home defence infrastructure for Kent.

This would be a revelation.

If the Great War had introduced the age of airpower into home defence, the Second World War was its demonstrable and dramatic maturation. Unlike anti-invasion defence which did not seriously get underway until the summer of 1940, air defence in the form of interceptor aircraft and anti-aircraft batteries, was in preparation before hostilities began. There were such sites as airfields, radar stations, balloon barrages and more. The anti-aircraft battery is a symbol on the ground of this emphatic and destructive period of air attack and defence. In Kent, although some AA batteries survive and those which had existed in the districts so far studied have been plotted, many have succumbed to demolition. One of the survivals is a heavy anti-aircraft battery at Cobham, near Gravesend. This is being cleared and recorded in a cooperative project between the Shorne Woods Archaeology Group and the HDC. The battle reports for this battery, showing how German raiders broke their formations on being fired at from the ground evoke the real-life drama of the time.

On the White Cliffs of Dover, the National Trust has been continuing its conservation of the structures at Wanstone Farm, with many of the buildings of the Wanstone coastal artillery and D2 heavy anti-aircraft (HAA) batteries being weatherproofed and having replacement doors and windows fitted to prevent further deterioration. Invasive plant growth has also been cut-back to allow easier visitor access in future. HDC member Robert Hall has been researching the D2 battery and tracing some of the descendants of those who served there and is currently compiling a book with the results of that research.

Passive air defence has left survivals, mainly air raid shelters, whether on the surface or underground. Among the dozens surveyed, one at Dartford still had squares of newspaper used as toilet tissue, cut from the Daily Mirror. Had they been from The Times I might have fainted.

Above

Fig 10: Anti-aircraft Battery at Cobham

Sites of the Cold War, a period of a feared apocalypse and megadeath, have been partially studied. The HDC and Thames Defence Heritage have recently cooperated in a new analysis and report on the Cold

War civil defence control centre at Gravesend. I’m told that this is the first local bunker of this kind to have been so handled. More work on the Cold War is likely.

OTHER ACTIVITIES

There has been involvement in the creation and revision of the defence chapter of the South-East Research Framework (SERF) for Kent, Surrey and East and West Sussex. This spans the period from the later medieval era to the Cold War. One project discussed is a revision of ‘Front-Line Kent’ published 20 years ago. This will rely on partnership authoring. A report completed on the twentieth-century defences of Swale district will appear in the 2021 issue of Arch. Cant. Meanwhile, there is a cooperative venture with Paul Pattison of Historic England to report on the later defences of Tilbury Fort in Essex. Leaders of important restoration projects in Kent at Slough Fort, Allhallows

(Keith Gulvin) and New Tavern Fort, Gravesend (Sandra Soder) have joined the HDC which also has a delegate (Alan Fyson) from the international Fortress Study Group.

From time to time queries about defence subjects are received by the HDC. At least one member has joined via that route. Requests for assistance have been received from those involved with batteries on Sheppey and near Faversham as well as from a developer about a 2,500 person industrial air-raid shelter at Northfleet. I also have files of specifications for the fixtures and fittings of forts which are sometimes drawn upon. Experience gained in Kent can sometimes be transferrable elsewhere. For example, in 2018, I was approached by Dr Edward Harris (inventor of the famous archaeological Harris Matrix which featured in the last issue of this Magazine), then Director of the Bermuda National Museum, to assess and report on their 1900 gun battery at the former naval dockyard for historical refurnishing and interpretation to visitors. This was carried out free of charge. Subsequently, and subject to my medical recovery, has come a request for participation in a study of the coastal forts of St.

Kitts in the Caribbean. I had the privilege to manage the Brimstone Hill Fortress National Park on this island 30 years ago and input to the ultimately successful application for it to be granted UNESCO World Heritage status. Most recently (Summer 2020) enquiries have been made concerning some defences in Ceylon and from the United States about the defensive qualities of the habitations of the Pueblo, a well-known Kentish tribe!

Defence studies, as with other histories, do not stop at some point in chronological time; today is the history – and potentially the archaeology – of tomorrow. National and regional security for the decades ahead are having to embrace an imperative to address evolving geopolitical and other challenges affecting

Above, left

Fig 11: Exterior of Cold War civil defence bunker at Gravesend

Above, right

Fig 12: Interior of Cold War civil defence bunker at Gravesend

Above

Fig 13: Front-Line Kent, published 19 years ago

Britain and Europe, cyber warfare and the threat of new weapons technology. Issues relating to the consequences of global climate change may also emerge.

Although the Covid 19 pandemic has placed a brake on many of the Society’s activities, when the time is right, I am sure that the HDC will again move forward, expanding its activities as the Special Interest Group status will allow. I shall continue to support it in every way I can. I encourage anyone who might like to succeed me as Chair to come forward.

HDC member Paul Tritton’s recent book on the Second World War, Tonbridge Fortress, may be downloaded from https://kentarchaeology.org.uk/ publications/member-publications/ tonbridge-fortress. This is also available as a free download direct from the author at paul.tritton@btinternet.com.

Another HDC member Clive Holden’s new book on the Maidstone Fortress may be downloaded from https:// www.kentarchaeology.org. uk/publications/member- publications/fortress-maidstone.

ENDNOTE: DISTRICT REPORTS OF THE 20TH-CENTURY DEFENCES OF KENT SO FAR PUBLISHED:

Thameside (Gravesham and Dartford), Arch. Cant., CXXX (2010), 1-33.

Medway, Arch. Cant.

CXXXI (2011), 159-195.

Canterbury, Arch. Cant., CXXXII (2012), 153-188.

Thanet, Arch. Cant., CXXXIX (2018), 318-321. (Summary). A full report is in Casemate, the journal of the international Fortress Study Group: 107 (Sept. 2016),

46-54, 108 (Jan. 2017), 20-24) and 109 (May 2017), 10-17.

Swale, completed for publication. It will appear in Arch. Cant. for 2021.

Figures 15 & 16 presented to the author by the late Major E.R.J. Barlow.

Top, left

Fig 14: Defence studies, as with other histories, do not stop at some point in chronological time

Top, right

Fig 15: A coastal defence plotting room at Dover during an exercise in 1950 Bottom

Fig 16: Gun firing at Dover during practice in 1950