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Summary

Heavy anti-aircraft gunsite, 450m north east of Mere Farm. Scheduled Monument. The gun emplacements, control room and a group of ancillery huts to the north of these are visible as structures on aerial photographs and were digitally plotted using these sources during the Inner Humber NMP project.

Monument Types

• HEAVY ANTI AIRCRAFT BATTERY (PM:C20:1941, Second World War - 1941 AD to 1945 AD)

Protected Status - None

Associated Finds - None

Associated Events

• Aerial photographic sortie
• Air photography
• Inner Humber Rapid Coastal Zone Assessment Survey NMP

Full description

Scheduled Monument. The monument includes standing, earthwork and associated buried remains of a World War II Heavy Anti-aircraft (HAA) gunsite, known as Scunthorpe H8 in official records. It includes the functional core of the gunsites with four emplacements and the command post, located 1Km to the south of Winteringham just east of Winteringham Road.

See Scheduled Monument notification for full description. [1]

Vertical aerial photograph taken in 1976 shows the gun emplacements and the command post. [2]

English Heritage Monuments at Risk report. [3]

World War II Heavy Anti-aircraft battery known as 'Scunthorpe H8', located 450 metres north east of Mere Farm and 1 kilometre south of Winteringham. The remains include the functional core of the gunsite, 4 gun emplacements and the command post which are constructed from brick with flat concrete roof sections and concrete floors. The command post is divided into 2 main parts with a series of semi sunken rooms forming a wide horseshoe around the frontal area which is open to the sky. This is now partly filled with soil and rubble. This open area originally housed an identification telescope, the predictor and the height finder which fed information to the plotting room which was the largest room in the covered part of the command post. The gun site was first recorded in September 1941 while still unmanned. it received 4 mobile 3.7 inch guns in October that year. Towards the end of the war it housed Italian and German prisoners of war. Afterwards it became a squatter camp used by demobbed service men and families made homeless by bombing. The area was cleared and returned to agricultural use by 1958. Scheduled. [4]

Aerial photographs, taken July 2012. [5 - 8]

The gun emplacements, control room and a group of ancillery huts to the north of these are visible as structures on aerial photographs [9-11]. The huts are visible along the north and west sides of the field to the north of the gun battery on 1946 aerial photographs [9]. A trackway links this area with the battery to the southeast. A larger rectilinear hut is also visible in the adjacent field, up against the western field boundary and possibly contained by a narrow bank or fence [9]. A gap in the field boundary at its north end gives access between the two areas; the larger hut is speculated to be a possible mess hut or perhaps officer's accommodation. The definition of the gun emplacements and the control room is clearer on later aerial photographs of 2006 and 2016 [10, 11]. The huts are no longer visible by this time. The features were digitally plotted from aerial photographs during the Inner Humber NMP project.

DN Riley, 06-JUL-84, DNR 2357/8A (AERIAL PHOTOGRAPH). SLS7764.

<1> English Heritage, Scheduling notification, AA 33075/1 (ADMINISTRATIVE RECORDS). SLS1405.

<2> Uncertain, 1976, Untitled Source, 07/76/191 (AERIAL PHOTOGRAPH). SLS1930.

<3> English Heritage, 2009, Monuments at Risk data, 34707 (ADMINISTRATIVE RECORDS). SLS3978.

<4> National Record of the Historic Environment, Ordnance Survey/NAR/NMR/NRHE Records, SE92SW 54 (COLLECTION / PARENT). SLS1263.

<4> 1994, Untitled Source (AERIAL PHOTOGRAPH). SLS4395.

<5> Innervisions Aerial Photography, 2012, Untitled Source (AERIAL PHOTOGRAPH). SLS5309.

<6> Innervisions Aerial Photography, 2012, Untitled Source (AERIAL PHOTOGRAPH). SLS5310.

<7> Innervisions Aerial Photography, 2012, Untitled Source (AERIAL PHOTOGRAPH). SLS5311.

<8> Innervisions Aerial Photography, 2012, Untitled Source (AERIAL PHOTOGRAPH). SLS5314.

<9> Royal Air Force, 21-SEP-46, RAF/CPE/UK/1748 RV 6071-2 (AERIAL PHOTOGRAPH). SLS7755.

<10> National Monuments Record, 12-OCT-06, NMR 201614/26 (SE 9321/16) (AERIAL PHOTOGRAPH). SLS7763.

<11> Get Mapping, 20-APR-16, Next Perspectives APGB imagery (AERIAL PHOTOGRAPH). SLS7494.

Sources and further reading

Related records

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