Bikes and Bunkers

[bikeworkshop]

My guess is its a repurposed old building, then doubling as camouflage - although some pillbox were built to fool aerial reconnaissance - I think this one is purpose built:

 

[dorset boy]

Anti Tank defences in local town.

 

[bikeworkshop]

Anti Tank defences in local town.

Looks like they are still expecting trouble in Dorset.
Here in Bristol this one has been bricked up

 

[Southville Hop]

This used to be the control bunker for a bombing decoy in Langstone Harbour. I remember exploring inside it about 35 years ago whilst on holiday. In a few more years there won’t be much left of it. Just a few hundred yards further on there is a brick and concrete pillbox

 

[dorset boy]

Brittany France.
This one would have looked much bigger back then, but it's half buried by the sea front now.

 

[db95]

Cool idea for a thread! As someone from a coastal and quite war proud town (see Tommy by Ray Lonsdale etc), exploring old pillboxes and the like is something we all did through childhood. Had always assumed the ones in my town were only coastal due to the docks, so imagine my surprise when hopping on the earlier linked database and finding one a two minute cycle from my house. Blew my mind given this is just off a path I have traverse hundreds of times in my life and never noticed due to it being slightly out of eye level.

 

[Southville Hop]

I found an unusual pillbox close to the SDW. The eDoB lists it as an experimental design or used for assault training. I have cycled past it several times over the years, but had never realised what it was until now.

 

[bikeworkshop]

My riding to Lydbrook, specifically to find this bunker:
Round the back of an industrial estate,

(https://www.whateversleft.co.uk/industrial/reed-corrigated-cases-factory-lower-lydbrook/)

which used to produce cable -
Important enough in ww2 to have a pillbox guarding the railway approach, and several air- raid shelters in the woods.
The Luftwaffe tried to bomb the works a few times, although only managed minor local damage.

Wartime memories of Lydbrook

An account of wartime memories of Lydbrook, Gloucestershire by Margaret Wilce.

www.sungreen.co.uk

The other side of the railway bridge has another pillbox, double embrasures, focused straight across the bridge.

 

[db95]

Wasn't intending on any bunker hunting this morning but I knew one was a stones throw from where I'd get off the NCR so I went for a look. That stones throw ended up dragging the bike uphill due to the loosest recently tilled soil known to man Type 22/Stent prefab looking very overgrown! EDOBID e11673

Not much to report inside bar the usual litter and graffiti, looking west along the B1404.

Seems fitting for the thread too, Seaham Harbours decommissioned WW2 Howitzer Gun that was installed a year or two back where a gun battery once stood.

 

[dorset boy]

Wasn't intending on any bunker hunting this morning but I knew one was a stones throw from where I'd get off the NCR so I went for a look. That stones throw ended up dragging the bike uphill due to the loosest recently tilled soil known to man Type 22/Stent prefab looking very overgrown! EDOBID e11673

Not much to report inside bar the usual litter and graffiti, looking west along the B1404.

Seems fitting for the thread too, Seaham Harbours decommissioned WW2 Howitzer Gun that was installed a year or two back where a gun battery once stood.

Looks like a 5.5",a good gun back in the day.