Sunny Sunday Pillboxing !!

Hi all;
The SUN came out the other day !!!! YIPEE !!! So after a little bit of planning on Google Earth i decided to try and find a few local pillboxes that would look good in pixels,so here goes.
First stop Cow Lane Marcham.This is S0009547 a fairly bog standard type 22 except for the two relief features-why you would add a feature to a lump of concrete during wartime is beyond me but,hey, i'm glad they did.PS there is another box of the same design a few miles down the Thames at Sutton Pools.

Carry on to the end of the lane and you'll bump into this bad boy.S0012014 a good old type 28a,once again fairly standard to these parts but unusually built with corrugated iron shuttering instead of the more usual wood or brick.Once again i can only think of one other around here like it and that is,coincidently,at Sutton Pools.!!!!


Off to the Thames path now and first stop Newbridge for S0006818 a rapidly sinking Type 22 built on a double height plinth.


Slightly further West is Tadpole Bridge and just West of this is S0011941 a type 22 now converted to a bat box and looking slightly bland with it's blocked up embrasures

Next-and final- stop Lechlade for a couple more Type 22s.The first is S0011920 which still looks rather manacing amid the tranqil setting on the Thames.


.....and finally S0011922 obviously used for target practise at some time and looking a little worse for wear !!



.....and internally just look at this shell damage ? Dont know which was entry or exit point but diagonally opposite is a same size hole in the exterior of the pillbox.!!!


and finally a damaged embrasure.

THANX FOR LOOKING !!!!

a crackin set of pillboxes there!nice one

Shell damage HOW???

FIND OUT MORE!!!

Who said pillboxes are boring? Absolute nonsense.

See you have been off with out me then you bugger. Nice to see a couple of old favorites at Marcham we visited last year. The Newbridge one looks to be a bit more pronounced in it's angle to the river. I must pop down there the weekend and get a couple of Photo's from the other side of the foot bridge.
Great photo's Fluffy shame you could not have been with us on the Sulham trip.

Great set of pics fluffy. FYI the relief features on the first PB are actually shuttering marks. Sometimes interlocking steel sheets were used rather than corrugated iron. That damage looks like post war target practice.

Target practice. Can you just imagine that happening today? Wandering around blowing things up in the countryside? Bloody fantstic idea, but I think it might upset the neighbours.

Some great pillboxes there. That targetted one looks mighty sad, I must say. Interesting to see the shell damage though. Fab pics, fluffy.
Is there a collective name for them, I wonder? Never thought of that before...perhaps we can make one up!

Foxylady said:

Is there a collective name for them, I wonder? Never thought of that before...perhaps we can make one up!

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A DRAWERFUL of pillboxes?

I personally don't think that looks like shell damage, it looks more like someone has tried and failed miserably to blow it up using dynamite or similar. I think there would be a lot more shrapnel damage had it been shells.

krela said:

I personally don't think that looks like shell damage, it looks more like someone has tried and failed miserably to blow it up using dynamite or similar. I think there would be a lot more shrapnel damage had it been shells.

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Could have been a shaped demo charge? that wouldn't produce much shrapnel but would still make a nice neat round hole.

Foxy, how about a Polygon of pillboxes as the collective noun?

A hardening of pillboxes? A precast of pillboxes? The possibilities are endless! Good photos though Fluff. A source close to me (who shall remain nameless for shame reasons) reckons that hole might have been made by an amateur pipe bomb. Conjecture I know, but an interesting one nevertheless!

Drove past th enewbridge one today but did not get a chance to visit, It's leaning even more than when I first visited it last year.