Kinsea Sound Mirror

Kilnsea Sound Mirror

Kilnsea Sound Mirror is located near Kilnsea, Yorkshire.It is the only listed ‘building’ in Kilnsea.

In World War I the Germans used Zeppelins to make bombing raids on eastern England. In order to have some warning of their approach, acoustic sound mirrors made of concrete were erected at various points along the coast. The Kilnsea sound mirror was probably built in 1916/17. It is in the shape of a half-hexagon, with an inner concave circular disc to amplify sound. It is 16 feet high and 17 feet wide. In front of the concrete disc is a plinth, with a pipe on which would have been mounted a trumpet-shaped 'collector head' which was a basic microphone.












More history and photoshere

Cool! Seems quite odd to see one sitting all on it's own in a field, though. Nice find.

Foxylady said:

Cool! Seems quite odd to see one sitting all on it's own in a field, though. Nice find.

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It is connected to Godwin Battery

Neosea said:

It is connected to Godwin Battery

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Ah! That's even cooler.

nice! im gonna get up and see the ones at Denge spring next year,

interesting, & simple solution to the direction finding problem back in the day!

also gonna get up to swingate, that looks quite special!

What an awesome structure. Its got such a sinister vibe about it. I think there is one up here somewhere in the north east I must investigate, thanks for posting this mate!

Thanks for the comments guys, it looks rather forlorn on the edge of the field.

Denge looks like a good explore.

nice one i thought there was only one of these and that was in norfolk i think

There's a few of them in Kent too, on the south side of the Thames Estuary.

MD said:

nice one i thought there was only one of these and that was in norfolk i think

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They go along the north east coast, at least to Redcar, a lot have been destroyed but some still hang on.

I was talking to an old boy in Hull a few months back that said his dad used to sit listening for Zeppelins. I thought he was talking bollix, and imagined a bunch of guys sitting on the beach with old fashioned ear trumpets.

It's good to know he wasn't wrong after all.

Seahorse said:

I was talking to an old boy in Hull a few months back that said his dad used to sit listening for Zeppelins. I thought he was talking bollix, and imagined a bunch of guys sitting on the beach with old fashioned ear trumpets.

It's good to know he wasn't wrong after all.

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It's good to keep an open mind

Seahorse said:

I was talking to an old boy in Hull a few months back that said his dad used to sit listening for Zeppelins. I thought he was talking bollix, and imagined a bunch of guys sitting on the beach with old fashioned ear trumpets.

It's good to know he wasn't wrong after all.

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it's true, and what's more, we still do it now!
(not much else to do here!)

and7barton said:

There's a few of them in Kent too, on the south side of the Thames Estuary.

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Yes indeed, there is one in Folkestone, two in Hythe and three in Denge, Nr. Dungerness and there were a couple on the cliffs at Dover, now buried?? Oh and one on the isle of sheppey, now in the sea.

tis a nice find that and the gun battery which is just up the road from there!

That's interesting, I didn't realise that they dated back as far as that, or reached so far up the coast. The BBC "Coast" programme did an experiment with one of them down south somewhere, using a Tiger Moth, and found that they did work up to a point.