Monument record 4638 - Searchlight Battery off Cliff Lane

<1> The GeoInformation Group, 2005, 1940s RAF Aerial Photographs from Operation Review, 106G UK 645, 11/08/45 (Aerial Photograph). SCH4608.

Aerial photos dating from the 1940s show a sub-oval ?fenced? enclosure which contains five or six Nissan huts, a number of unidentified features and three large circular features in a clover leaf arrangement.

<2> Colin Dobinson, 2001, AA Command. Britain's Anti-Aircraft Defences Of The Second World War, p.283-5 (Book). SCH4480.

The clover leaf arranged features are the emplacements for the searchlights of a searchlight battery.

<3> Historic England & Archaeological Research Services, 2017, Cheshire National Mapping Programme and Lidar Mapping Project: Sampling the Peak Fringe, Cheshire Plain and Mersey Valley, 1600993 (Digital Archive). SCH8172.

A Second World War searchlight battery located on Cliff Hill is visible as extant structures, buildings and earthworks centred at SJ 9384 7444 on historic aerial photography. Though the structures and buildings have been demolished and the majority of earthworks levelled by the latest 2011 vertical aerial imagery, some of the features do appear to remain extant.

The battery consists of three searchlight emplacements in the north of the complex and six military structures or buildings arranged around the south of the compound, close to the entrance on Cliff Lane. At least two gunposts are visible in the centre of the battery. The compound is surrounded by barbed wire on historic photography (see 4 & 5).

<4> Royal Air Force, 1944-1947, 1940s RAF Aerial Photographs from Operation Review, RAF/106G/UK/645 RP 3120 11/08/1945 (Aerial Photograph). SCH8041.

<5> Next Perspectives, 2011, Aerial Photography for Great Britain, Next Perspectives APGB Imagery (2011), SJ9374, 08/04/2011 (Aerial Photograph). SCH8291.