Summary

Pillbox

Full description

Contemporary records state, "Pillbox and gunpit. Garden in front of "The Leather Bottle", Shrub End. Map ref. 418416." (Mil. Ed.) <1>

"The Leather Bottle" public house stands at the junction of Straight Road and Shrub End Road about three quarters of a mile outside the main defence line and anti-tank ditch around south Colchester. Each of the main routes into the town from the south appears to have been covered by pillboxes at a similar distance from the main defences. Aerial photographs taken in March and July 1945 show the green outside "The Leather Bottle" at the road junction. On the verge by Straight Road, is, indistinctly, a pillbox, probably hexagonal, positioned to give a field of fire to the S and SW. In the centre of the green is a pit - presumably the gun pit referred to in the wartime record. <2> <3>

The area of the green is now a tarmaced-over parking area.

<1> unknown, 1968, War Time Contraventions 1968, Colchester (LIST). SEX31436.

<2> RAF, 1945, 106G-LA 170-2016 (AP). SEX64227.

<3> RAF, 1945, 106G-UK 555-4069 (AP). SEX64228.

Monument Types

• PILLBOX (WWII, Modern - 1939 AD to 1945 AD)

Associated Events

• Colchester - Lexden to Mersea Road by Fred Nash (Ref: Nash COL Apr-Aug 2001)

Sources and further reading

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