Early in 2017 we received an Email from Jon Mills. He had been interested in Pillboxes and WWII defences from the early 1970’s but was now no longer interested and looking to find a home for his photographs and notes. Did we want them he asked – we certainly did […]
The Mills Collection
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Henry Wills seminal book Pillboxes, A study of U.K. defences 1940 is where much of the interest, there is today in pillboxes and other defences, really began. He wrote to over 200 newspapers all over the country. Responses were numerous and the first nationwide survey of surviving WWII defences got […]
Type 24 pillbox on verge of Brampton Road above station. About 50m E of junction with B 1354. The pillbox faces E. In corner of John Gaunt School playing field, near railway station and railway bridge, Aylsham.
This Type 24 appears not to be listed in the DOB or EDOB databases. Update 21/6/2020 it now appears as PILLBOX (TYPE FW3/24): e41998 The photos in the gallery below don’t appear to have aged very well and quite a lot of work has gone into recovering as much detail […]
This small pillbox appears most likely to be S0013698. Marked as removed in the EODBD overlay.
8 photos over a page and a half in the  photo album included in the collection show 3 different pillboxes in Bridgewater, Somerset. Two of them were easily identified using the EDOBD overlay for google Earth. The third is proving more difficult as there is nothing on the overlay that […]
S0006362 This Type 22 with no ricochet wall and an external blast wall is still extant and in very good condition.
The picture shows a Pillbox built in 1940 and demolished in 1950. It was sited to defend a HAA Battery situated on the common where at one point Sir Mortimer Wheeler was in command.
Looking through a packet of photographs, I came across two of a two storey, or elevated, pillbox and one of a ford escort next to a large building. I wasn’t sure if the picture with the Escort in was connected at this stage. I posted the two of the pillbox […]
The maps below clearly show this pillbox to be in the location shown on google earth for S0004624. Mike Osborne’s book “Pillboxes of Britain and Ireland” shows a picture on page 148 which appears to be this pillbox but gives a grid ref which matches S0004824. It is possible that […]
Once again it appears the pictures have not aged very well and there are no negatives to scan.
Two variant Pillboxes at Kew Railway Bridge, London. The Pillbox as it appears today The pillbox below is described as –Polygonal concrete-faced pillbox, of a particular design for railway linesides. Embrasures providing all-round fire. Front wall is a chamfered corner. Field of fire from two angled walls and side walls. […]
Pillboxes near Mildenhall, pictures from 1973
Coastal battery. The gun emplacements and revetments are in good condition. Magazines are banked and covered and seem reasonably sound. Some of the ancillary buildings are now roofless.
A six-sided lozenge-shaped pillbox, with a blast wall protecting the entrance on the W side. An Orlit aircraft post stands on top of it, reached by an iron ladder.
featuring Variant pillbox S0006529 at middle left.
Just to the south side of southbound platform of elevated tube station and before District Line trains cross River Thames. Pillbox is multi-sided and of two storeys – lower storey has doorway in west side and one embrasure. Upper storey projects westwards beyond lower storey and has a doorway on […]
The third set of photo’s I decided to scan showed this curious, double decker, pillbox. Checking out it’s location on the google Earth EDOB overlay showed nothing. A bout of old OS 1″ map viewing, Streetviewing and google mapping later I came up with the last view in the gallery. […]
This one is still extant and appears in good condition.