Site Name: Portsmouth , Old City Airport Site Type: Defence > Pickett-Hamilton Retractable Pillbox NGR: SU 6732-0390 Location: On sea wall between remnant of former moat to Hilsea Lines, retained as a drainage channel for former airport and present housing estate (since this dig this has become a community of […]
Rescue Archaeology
23 posts
Anti-tank Cylinder and Mine Socket Excavation, Blacksmith’s Bridge, Dogmersfield, Hampshire. During the winter months of late 2007 and early 2008 I was involved in the discovery and excavation of mine sockets on Blacksmith’s Bridge, Dogmersfield in Hampshire. Previously only three of these sockets were visible. At first it was thought […]
Prefab Type 26 Pillbox 52B, Lock 15, Brookwood Bridge, Surrey. SU943569 Back in the spring a meeting with Basingstoke Canal Authority Ranger Sara Green decided that winter 2015 was going to the best time to work on this pillbox. The type 26 had become very overgrown and filled with […]
Following an appeal for help on the (old) Pillbox Study Group forum from Paul Thompson, four of us met up on August 17th 2008 to clean up 3 pillboxes located at Beal farm on the Northumberland Coast, overlooking the causeway to Holy Island. The first of these is a rectangular […]
Study & ‘Makeover’ Of A Shellproof Pillbox The pillbox is on private land near to the GHQ line at Crookham in Hampshire and is one of only two of this design. During January 2006 the landowner very kindly allowed me to carry out a study and survey of the unusual […]
Early in January 2008 I completed a relatively easy task exposing a fine collection of dragons teeth that had become virtually hidden by many years of undergrowth. Set on the sloping south bank of the Basingstoke Canal at Crookham in Hampshire, they once formed part of the aldershot west defence […]
The rescue & recording of two Vickers gun emplacements A sunny October morning in 2009 saw well known PSG members meet to start on operation Cromwell, a project carrying out a study to uncover, record and renovate some of Ewshot’s many surviving pillboxes for hopeful long term survival. The team […]
February 2010, A type 24 emerges from the undergrowth. On a cold and wet February day a keen PSG team tackled one of the most overgrown pillboxes to date, this time it would reveal what we believed to be the best surviving bullet proof FW3/24 on the MOD land at […]
Just over three years ago PSG members completed the Rescue Archaeology on six of the 18 pillboxes that lay on Ministry land at Ewshot in Hampshire. With permission from the MOD and Taylor Wimpey two pairs of Vickers Machine Gun emplacements and two bullet proof type 24 pillboxes were gradually […]
A Hampshire 8 Sided Pillbox re-discovered. PILLBOX: S0011186 (Extant) A forgotten and unusual pillbox re-appeared again late October 2008 when myself, Tim Burt and Philip Riley met to carry out a project uncovering a part of Odiham’s hidden wartime history. During 1940 there was a possibility of airborne troop and […]
Survey Report Introduction On 29th May 2010, Colin Anderson and Ian Hall carried out a survey of the Auxiliary Unit (Special Duties) Zero Station at Heifer Law, near Alnwick. This report provides an overview of what was found during the survey. Thanks must go to Northumberland Estates, the landowners of […]
As part of the Maiden Newton at War Weekend members of the Pillbox Study Group carried out a restoration of a Type 22 Pillbox on the edge of the village.
Netley Park House, North Downs, Shere. GHQ Line B Rescue Archaeology Ngr TQ079486 At the end of January 2012 Rob Hewer who leads the National Trust team that looks after the North Downs Way invited us over help to carry out some essential clearance work around and in a type […]
A very clean and intact type 22 saw daylight again on 1st June 2010. The Pillbox had lain very much overgrown and hidden from view at the rear of the site of the old village hall at East Stoke near Wareham, Dorset. Graham had been given the chance to uncover […]
Restoration Of The Tulk‘s Hill Observation Pillbox When you have been married to a ‘Pillbox Spotter’ for as long as I have then you will understand that `concrete-itis` is just part of life`s rich tapestry and that it`s quite normal to drive around the countryside peering over hedges! If you […]
Restoration Of The ‘Dorset Round Type’ One-Off Design Pillbox At Sy 7600-9060 Initial Thoughts Whilst travelling around the Dorset countryside in the mid-1990’s as a ‘Field Researcher’ for the Defence of Britain Project, I stumbled across a unique Pillbox, the type of which I have not seen replicated at any other location in […]
By The Lincolnshire Aircraft Recovery Group The remains of the Bison were found at Sleaford where it had been a familiar land mark to many and a playground item to many children over the last 50 years. However, few could have known its historical value. Indeed, only around 200 were […]
As soon as I saw this almost ruin I just knew it had to be saved, not only for future generations, but also as part of the history of our small village Elstow near Bedford. Elstow was the birth place of John Bunyan, the author of Pilgrims Progress. Whilst taking part […]
Revealed, a long hidden Hampshire Pillbox. On a bitterly cold day during January 2007, Graham Matthews and I spent a morning giving a ‘makeover’ to an unusual shell-proof pillbox near Hook in Hampshire. The wartime structure had lain shrouded in undergrowth for the past 30 years or so, and could hardly be […]
March 2008 saw myself and PSG member Tim Burt meet up to work on an overgrown Type 24. I had worked on an adjacent example at the beginning of January 2008 and as an on going project it enabled me to show PSG members a ‘cleaned off’ example during […]
Aldershot Command Spigot Mortar Base. Black Bridge, Hook, Hampshire. SU718537 This project had taken several years to come to fruition but during the last 12 months, after many letters, phone calls and a site meeting permission was granted by Natural England and the Hampshire and IOW Trust who manage the […]
The most unusual and unique pillbox on the Basingstoke Canal is undoubtedly the tall variant built into the sloping embankment above Tundry Pond at Dogmersfield Hampshire, ngr SU777524 . I have heard it described as a tower, double decker and a staircase pillbox, all of which describe first appearances but this […]
I had been given permission by the landowner to carry out a study on the Vickers machine gun emplacement earlier in the year but had decided to leave until the winter months for the leaves to have fallen. Armed with spades, broom and various other tools, myself and fellow PSG […]