WW2 Gun Emplacements - Essex

A little story to begin with: At the beginning of our urbex career we’d popped out for a late night rusty ladder climb. As we approached, there was a shifty looking character having a smoke in the darkness. We aborted our mission…..because I was chicken, not because of the shifty being!. My fella gets talking to Mr Shifty who goes on to talk about his adventures as a young child and roughly explaining a location where there were some WW2 buildings with tunnels. Fast forward 2 years and we have finally found said location……

Onto the explore....

Nature had certainly taken over the majority of the gun emplacements and is the worst I have attempted to get through! The first one we could only see the outside wall, no access whatsoever. The second was extremely overgrown but with one visible entrance but that was waterlogged and the third…..bingo!

I love a bit of good graffiti but what a relief it was to see them all untouched and rarely visited!

After the stings from nettles and the hooking of thorns I hope you enjoy this little report…..enjoy

Looks a bit slippy and I fecken hate nettles, Nice One Malenis, Thanks

That's a really cool find nicely photographed, sure someone will know what they all are but pretty sure one is a generator room!

...and where's that picture of you? Haha! Fantastic photos Malenis

That picture was for VIPs only ;-) x

Wonderful set of images Malenis, feels like I've had a little walk about the place meself, love the furry green stairs!

Nice and green. Hope you both enjoyed it Malenis.

Kenny88 - WW2 gun emplacements Essex is all you need to do an online search. I will add that they are not anti aircraft emplacements as a bit of extra help. Old larger scale OS Maps are a very good tool for the Urban Explorer who is into old MOD structures - for WW2, look for maps produced/updated after the mid '50's

Very nice set Malenis, interesting to see how nature is protecting these structures. I presume (from the gun mount foundation) these are the sites that housed the WW1 ex Battleship and Cruiser high angle main turret armament, used in the installations for WW2 coastal defence. Although the guns and their mountings were long gone in the late '50's, early '60's, there was far more iron work and wire still to be seen back then - as there was at all coastal defence sites that were not situated on the foreshore of coastal towns e.g., Bridlington foreshore was completely cleared, but travel up to Thornwick Bay and there was plenty of wire etc around the Pill Box. The only things moved from the beach at Thornwick Bay were the Tank Trap Blocks, which had been dynamited from their foundations. This was done so that any fishing coble in distress could be run onto the beach above the high water mark and out of danger.

Thanks Dirus, very interesting.

That. Is. Stunning.

im guessing that is beacon hill fort been there many times looks very overgrown since my last visit

Explore-With-AZ said:

im guessing that is beacon hill fort been there many times looks very overgrown since my last visit

Click to expand...

No, not Beacon Hill

oh its not oh!! where is this one then not one ive seen there is one close by to me at lee on sands