Southampton shore Pill boxs and Bofor

A few shots from the other day , the first is a Extended officers post, pill box, which was unaccesable being that it was in the grounds of a very large house, protected by high security fencing, with camera's on the gates. shame as it looked really good.
This post was linked to mines in the solent and had a brick lookout tower/MG post mounted above.









The second pill box was also nice although unacesable due to being bricked up.
This also had a lookout tower mounted above, a porch over the doorway and was connected to mines in the Solent.
You can see groves in the front lower walls where cables ran through.
There is also another pill box in this area but i failed to find it





Rear view.




Front view showing cable cuts, not sure if the hole was suposed to be in the centre, might have been but looked a bit rough.
Gun poitions bricked up and rendered over. Possibly for Bats as has been done to other boxes.





Lastly the 40mm Bofor, this was at Hamble point and put there in 1989 to replace the previous gun.
Also another gun mount possibly for a 6.5 pounder.
There was a connecting bridge between the 2 Gun positions.







































There was also the remains of a old St Andrews Castle built for Henry V111, but only a few Granite stones remain.


Also there are remains of a old 19th Century gun battery , this is the wife in a Magazine

Lots of nice photos! looks like an interesting area to explore Thanks for posting

Nice, Think I'd hav ebeen knocking on the door of the fenced off place to see if I could get acess. Did your wife go in the magazine for you or did you make her. Love that Bofors gun.

night crawler said:

Nice, Think I'd hav ebeen knocking on the door of the fenced off place to see if I could get acess. Did your wife go in the magazine for you or did you make her. Love that Bofors gun.

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The Building is very expensive flats, I didn't like to press any doorbells on the gate, but did hang around a while in case any one drove up. it was a grotty wet day so didn't stay to long there.

Made the wife go in, she likes dirty magazines, ( NOT )

There is a lot unknown about Southampton's WW2 history, and not very well documented.

I have found a few interesting sites, although the remains are not that interesting, picture wise, although the history , if you can find any is good.


Will post more later.

Nice set of pics BB. I think what you clocked as a 6pdr mount next to the Bofors would actually have mounted a predictor or possibly a range finder. It's a shame the XDO posts are inaccessible, the embrasures on these ones would have been purely for observation, it's unlikely weapons would have been mounted inside but a look inside would have confirmed that. Other XDO posts like the one near Burnham on Crouch are bristling with them though.

cptpies said:

Nice set of pics BB. I think what you clocked as a 6pdr mount next to the Bofors would actually have mounted a predictor or possibly a range finder. It's a shame the XDO posts are inaccessible, the embrasures on these ones would have been purely for observation, it's unlikely weapons would have been mounted inside but a look inside would have confirmed that. Other XDO posts like the one near Burnham on Crouch are bristling with them though.

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The circular base is indeed a rangefinder mount which would have held something similar to this:


Rangefinder WW2 museum by muppet number1, on Flickr

There's nothing to store shells for, it doesn't look like there was any heavy artillery there and shells were never stored in the open anyway, always in lockers or recesses of some kind. The chances are they are exactly what they seem. Seats. There would have been radio operators around the rangefinder relaying information back to the control / observation bunkers.

Good stuff Bill, that's a location I have been past many times on the yacht but never got round to shooting it up close. The whole estuary is packed with stuff, a very interesting place and I love those minefield control towers.

Nice one Bill, love the Bofors.

I think Krela's right about the height/ range finder mounting. Oldscrote's thread about WW2 pictures from Kent has a photo of one.

For the thread [ame]http://www.derelictplaces.co.uk/main/showthread.php?t=18059[/ame]

and for the picture http://www.kentphotoarchive.org.uk/warpeace/archive_images/WanPs-0326.jpg

It does look similar, nice pic, thanks. I wont make a coment about the blondes

Bunker Bill said:

It does look similar, nice pic, thanks. I wont make a coment about the blondes

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Well! Helloo! Mmmm, blondes

nice shots BB shame about the XDO though