Summary

Road Barrier (destroyed)

Full description

Each of the five arms of the Army and Navy junction was sealed off by a road barrier during World War Two. It can be seen from 1946 and 1947 aerial photographs that a swathe of anti-tank pimples ran from the track which led to Whitehouse Farm northwards around Paramount Engineers to the E side of Chelmer Road at this point. On the W side of the road a stream which ran from beneath the road, across the meadow to John Sadd and Sons (Builders Yard) at TL 7147 0610, can be seen to have been cleared and widened. This would have been an effective anti-tank barrier. Between the pimples on the E side and the anti-tank ditch on the other, a road barrier, probably a “socket and railway line type”, would have completed the ring of barriers around this important junction.

Nothing of the pimples or road barrier survives. Just a few yards of the stream on the W side of Chelmer Road remains before it enters a culvert. <1> <2> <3>

<1> RAF, 1946, 106G-UK 1707-4445, August 1946 (AP). SEX65351.

<2> RAF, 1947, CPE-UK 2029-6060, April 1947 (AP). SEX65508.

<3> RAF, 1947, CPE-UK 2221-5361, August 1947 (AP). SEX65509.

Monument Types

• ROAD BARRIER (WWII, Modern - 1939 AD to 1945 AD)

Associated Events

• Visit by Fred Nash - Jan 2005 (Ref: Nash CHL Jan 2005)

Protected Status

• Historic Environment Character Area: Chelmsford 4
• Historic Environment Character Zone: Chelmsford 4.2
• Conservation Area: Chelmer and Blackwater Navigation (CHELMSFORD)

Sources and further reading

Search results generated by the HBSMR Gateway from exeGesIS SDM Ltd.