Mitford lozenge pillboxes

[jonney]

Mitford is a small village to the west of Morpeth in Northumberland and is home to 4 lozenge pillboxes, The DoB has 5 marked on the map but pillbox S0007279 does not exist as it would have been 50 yards in front of the main embrasures of pillbox S0007206 and having searched the surrounding area just to make sure the placemark wasn't just in the wrong place I can say it never did exist. Right on with the concrete I'll start with the worst conditioned ones and save the best till last

pillbox S0007206 is in the field opposite the church and the ruins of the castle, all embrasures and door have been bricked up on this one

pillbox S0007281 is in the trees at the side of the road from Morpeth to Mitford and if you didn't know it was there you would drive straight past it

looked good from the outside but inside was a different matter

now for pillbox S0013381 (P350) which is in the field overlooking the village. You can see the frost still on the ground in these photos even though it was dinnertime it was a nice warm -2 degrees lol

sadly this pillbox was flooded so I could only get internals through the embrasures but it has an unusual ricochet wall it's the only one I've found that has a hole/loophole/embrasure call it what you will in the middle of it

and lastly we have pillbox S0007280 (P349) which is just on the outskirts of the village

this one also floods but thankfully it was just muddy inside

Well that's all from Mitford hope you enjoyed

Cheers for looking
Jon

 

[WinchItIn]

Cracking set of pic's Jonney, that last P/B is great condition.

 

[flyboys90]

great photos,I like the use of a fire grate in S0007281.

 

[Andymacg]

more concretey goodness jonney

that last one was in fantastic condition

 

[oldscrote]

Ah thank you Jonney, what a glorious way to start a Sunday, bacon and eggs and a heap of pillbox porn

 

[RichCooper]

Some nice clean concrete there mate

 

[jonney]

cheers guys the last two were in fantastic condition it's just a shame they flood because you have to go down the steps into them, a design flaw on the builders part I think. I believe they dug a big hole built the pillboxes and back filled rather than heaping earth up round them thus letting leaving the run off from the fields somewhere to go

 

[Munchh]

Thanks for posting these jonney.

Still can't see the point of completely bricking up a PB.

Interesting to see the painted numbering. That'll be the serial number for the Senior Field Engineer's document set of the Command area. Same system on the Taunton line.

 

[Munchh]

cheers guys the last two were in fantastic condition it's just a shame they flood because you have to go down the steps into them, a design flaw on the builders part I think. I believe they dug a big hole built the pillboxes and back filled rather than heaping earth up round them thus letting leaving the run off from the fields somewhere to go

Or a choice between the lesser of two evils maybe? Additional earthworks could have dealt with surface run off but not rising groundwater. What's the source of the flood water jon?

 

[krela]

Or a choice between the lesser of two evils maybe? Additional earthworks could have dealt with surface run off but not rising groundwater. What's the source of the flood water jon?

If the pillboxes are on a floodplain then when the area is in flood it wouldn't have made a good path for invasion forces anyway... given that the assumption was that the Germans would use blitzkrieg tactics with tanks the same way they did in France.

 

[jonney]

in pillbox 350 it was run off from the hill behind it and 349 was badly drained farmers field if it hadn't been frosty the place would have been a bog

 

[smiler]

They don’t look too bad, was it a bit nippy that morning?

 

[Munchh]

in pillbox 350 it was run off from the hill behind it and 349 was badly drained farmers field if it hadn't been frosty the place would have been a bog

Sounds like you've had a good look at this Jon. Not beyond the realm of possibility that the engineers got things wrong here as you say.