Monument record 2851 - Heavy anti-aircraft gun emplacement, 250m north east of New Farm Cottages

<1> English Heritage, Various, Schedule Entry (Scheduled Ancient Monuments Amendment), 2001/33856 (Scheduling Record). SCH2950.

The monument includes the standing, earthwork and buried remains of the World War II Heavy Anti-aircraft (HAA) gunsite known as Station H21, including four gun pits, a command post and the ruinied remains of some ancillary buildings. It is located 250m north west of New Farm Cottages. The gunsite was first mentioned in War Office records in July 1941. It was manned by regual units of the Royal Artillery who operated four 4.5 inch guns directed by GL MkII radar. It was not one of the 192 Heavy Anti-Aircraft gunsites to be retained as part of the post war Nucleus Force after 1945. The site faces south and would have been aimed at enemy aircraft following the north coast of Wales and Manchester Ship Canal in order to bomb Manchester and Liverpool.

The four gun emplacements are constructed of concrete and are arranged in a shallow arc to the south of the command post and 20m apart. Each emplacement consists of an octagonal gun pit 7.5m across surrounded by concrete and on two opposite sides, steel blast doors of which only the hinge brackets survive. Four of the interior facets are concrete roofed boxes with wooden racks to contain ammunition. This configuration was designed in 1938. The walls of each pit survive up to the original height.

To the north is the (presumed) command post, a partly sunken building of brick, with a concrete roof above ground. The northern side of the building is open to the sky, forming a standing for a telescope, a predictor and for visual observation of incomming aircraft. Certain aspects of the building do not conform to the usual pattern for command posts elsewhere. The building measures 8m x20m. The open central area has been formed by excavating a space from a high bank constructed along the north side of the site and there are no buildings on this northern side to complete the surround for the interior.

There are the burried and ruined remains of at least two other concrete buildings to the west of the gunpits and one of these may have housed the radar and other detection equipment. The housing and ancillary buildings for the battery were located outside this area, in what is now arable farmland to the south of the gunsite.

<2> CBA, 2002, Defence of Britain Project, 2280 (Digital Archive). SCH4380.

<3> Ian Rowan (Independent Consultant), 2020, Heritage Statement in connection with Proposed development at Chapel House Lane, Puddington, R4508 (Client Report). SCH9040.

A heritage statement and photographic survey was prepared in 2020 to assess the implications of proposed development on the World War II Gun Emplacement. The development site, land adjacent Chapel House Lane, Puddington, lies immediately to the north of the scheduled site.

The study summises that the gun emplacement offers relatively low aesthetic value, but high evidential and historic value. Built mainly of concrete and steel it is of utilitarian design and construction, comprising four gun pits which housed 4 no. 4.5” guns; the retention of timber racking demonstrates the size and amount of ammunition that could be stored in each pit. Similarly, the ammunition store located to the north, is of similar utilitarian design, again made of concrete. The command centre, also located to the north of the gun pits, is of a 20th Century stretcher bond brick construction. It would have enabled observation, likely by telescope then later radar, looking from the roof of the submerged post.

When built, the installation would have been located in open land, in a strategic position, given that enemy fighters could approach over North Wales for raids upon Liverpool and Manchester, using the Welsh coastline and Manchester Ship Canal as guidance. However, the setting of the monument has much changed since its construction, being now in a dense wooded area, totally hidden from sight. The original access has been diminished through time due to inactivity and becoming overgrown.