Pillbox & Spigot Mortar Base + Graffiti, Cuckmere Haven, East Sussex

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acen2006

acen2006

Well-known member
Joined
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Location
East Sussex
I spent a couple of hours down at Cuckmere Haven this morning to test out a new camera and come across afew new things for myself as iv walked past these areas loads of times but have never seen them.

First of I found this possible pillbox entrance buried but alittle uncovered.

bi2bl1.jpg


24malip.jpg


jtm91g.jpg


30w9ug6.jpg


Then next I come accros this possible Spigot Mortar base.

2ahb0k9.jpg


15ro31d.jpg


And lastly what looks like afew bits of graffiti from the tank traps (dragon's teeth).

24e5477.jpg


68bm7a.jpg


It looks like '133' or '183' section.

33axvzs.jpg


A love heart.

2zf8qbd.jpg


There is something writen but its hard to see.​
 
Nothing wrong with that, I used to have a Canon S2iS till I dropped it, now use an SX200 which is slightly better and fits in my pocket. I'm still waiting to find a spigot mortar base. :)
 
Acen, you're very observant, as I only know two people who've ever clocked that pillbox!

It's not the entrance, but the loophole you've seen - the iron bar and concrete is there to block it up, but I managed to get my camera inside to take photos a few weeks back.


pb_loophole.jpg


Interior:

pb_interior.jpg


The interior has been infilled with earth, so I have no idea where the entrance was, but presumably on the back wall.

The circular block is not a spigot mortar pedestal, however. It's too small and would have been in a minefield. It's possible it might have been a minefield marker (ie datum point for mapping) as each mine was supposed to be hooked up to a system of recovery wires. It seems to be an old oil drum filled with concrete with a pipe in the centre; it's not in the area occupied by the decoy lighting but if not part of the minefield, then may be related to the training exercises that took place here or possibly postwar.

As for the grafitti, you're right in it being '133' - it actually reads '133 COY 3 SECT' - full explanation at: http://www.pillbox.org.uk/pillblogs/detail.asp?ID=59

and some more grafitti at: http://www.pillbox.org.uk/pillblogs/detail.asp?ID=108

- Pete
 
gaspirator said:
Acen, you're very observant, as I only know two people who've ever clocked that pillbox!

It's not the entrance, but the loophole you've seen - the iron bar and concrete is there to block it up, but I managed to get my camera inside to take photos a few weeks back.


pb_loophole.jpg


Interior:

pb_interior.jpg


The interior has been infilled with earth, so I have no idea where the entrance was, but presumably on the back wall.

The circular block is not a spigot mortar pedestal, however. It's too small and would have been in a minefield. It's possible it might have been a minefield marker (ie datum point for mapping) as each mine was supposed to be hooked up to a system of recovery wires. It seems to be an old oil drum filled with concrete with a pipe in the centre; it's not in the area occupied by the decoy lighting but if not part of the minefield, then may be related to the training exercises that took place here or possibly postwar.

As for the grafitti, you're right in it being '133' - it actually reads '133 COY 3 SECT' - full explanation at: http://www.pillbox.org.uk/pillblogs/detail.asp?ID=59

and some more grafitti at: http://www.pillbox.org.uk/pillblogs/detail.asp?ID=108

- Pete
Click to expand...

Thanks for the extra info gaspirator and your photos :). Its good to see a view of the inside. I suppose years of flood defence work has ment this has not been see really for some time!?.
 
Cuckmere Hidden Pillbox

AGK of the Pillbox Study Group wrote a report on this buried pillbox in a copy of Loopholes a while back.
He has 40 plus years experience of this area Sussex and must be considered an expert in his field.
May be worth joining the PSG, you may be surprised at what you can learn!:)
 
Excellent find Acen.

I've been down there a couple of times and not seen that one. I must go back without the family and have a proper mooch around. How's the camera by the way? I've been toying with getting one of those. I'm not keen enough (yet) to splash for a 400 quid job but that one can be picked up for a pretty reasonable price.
 
cptpies said:
Excellent find Acen.

I've been down there a couple of times and not seen that one. I must go back without the family and have a proper mooch around. How's the camera by the way? I've been toying with getting one of those. I'm not keen enough (yet) to splash for a 400 quid job but that one can be picked up for a pretty reasonable price.
Click to expand...

The camera is great thanks cptpies. It has afew more settings compared to my last camera and im still struggling with some of them but i love the x12 zoom.
 
Nice find Acen I wonder how many other pillboxes are buried round there
 
Could anyone give any feedback as to the size of the loophole of this possible box, I have someone else were saying it maybe to small for a pillbox lol.
 
The general size for a loophole is about 10 inches by 8, which is big enough to take an LMG like a Bren or Vickers K. Rifle loopholes tend to be smaller and more square. But in answer to your question there's no standard size. In this case it looks like a rifle sized loophole. The stepped embrasure is also a good indication it's a loophole. If it were for observation it would be long and thin.
 
It's definitely a loophole - it can't have been much more than 20cm wide, as it was a tight fit getting my camera and hands in. The only way to properly see in is to put a torch inside, then camera with screen flipped up as the blocking concrete and hoop means you can't get a very good direct line of sight even if you lie down in the mud, nettles and rabbit poo...

I tried a bomb torch, but never really got any useful results with it.

torch.jpg


It is a funny little pillbox, but then PBs built for a particular situ tend to be. I actually built a Google Sketchup model of the Cuckmere Haven defences to use in Google Earth for a talk I did last September - having placed all these pillboxes in the landscape and added in the long-gone defences, I now have an inkling as to why this one was here and the weapon mounted, but I need to do some more research before I'm certain.

- Pete
 
I took a quick trip to Cuckmere Haven and got the following pic from inside by strapping my old camera (S9600) to my hiking pole and sending it in with the timer going. (The string is an emergency camera extraction system.)

I've tinted the 'shoulders' of the loophole surround in red to make them clearer.

Loophole is 21cm wide and 26cm high from the top down to the 'floor' level. However, I stuck a tent peg into the mud and hit concrete about 7-8cm down, giving a possible height of 33-34cm.

internal_pb.jpg


I did a quick measure of what I could, but some of the pillbox geometry is a bit dodgy, showing the haste with which some of these were built.

I'll be going back again sometime as there's some photos I want from specific angles inside to answer a few more questions.

- Pete
 
gaspirator said:
I took a quick trip to Cuckmere Haven and got the following pic from inside by strapping my old camera (S9600) to my hiking pole and sending it in with the timer going. (The string is an emergency camera extraction system.)

I've tinted the 'shoulders' of the loophole surround in red to make them clearer.

Loophole is 21cm wide and 26cm high from the top down to the 'floor' level. However, I stuck a tent peg into the mud and hit concrete about 7-8cm down, giving a possible height of 33-34cm.

internal_pb.jpg


I did a quick measure of what I could, but some of the pillbox geometry is a bit dodgy, showing the haste with which some of these were built.

I'll be going back again sometime as there's some photos I want from specific angles inside to answer a few more questions.

- Pete
Click to expand...

Strapping the camera to the pole was a good idea:). Thanks again for the extra information on this gaspirator. It seems tobe getting more and more interesting for myself:). Il be hopefully taking another trip back there myself to show a friend the location of it.
 
acen2006 said:
Strapping the camera to the pole was a good idea:).
Click to expand...

Not good for the nerves despite the string - the pole landed on the top of the piece of wood seen at bottom right and suddenly slid down to the left a few inches before resting at the level seen in the pic. I suddenly thought that perhaps only the front half of the PB was backfilled and that the camera was going over the back and down to an unknown depth; the string was probably thick enough to pull the camera back on the level, but not actually lift it from a drop over a ledge!

Just had a thought - how do you backfill a PB? There's obviously a door and one loophole, but assuming that the backfill is reasonably level (need to get more pics to confirm and lob a plumb-line in) it stands to reason that some of the earth had to be shovelled thru the loophole unless there really is a drop at the rear, but the door's not visible from loophole level and the soil's quite high on the back wall??

acen2006 said:
Thanks again for the extra information on this gaspirator. It seems tobe getting more and more interesting for myself:). Il be hopefully taking another trip back there myself to show a friend the location of it.
Click to expand...

No worries mate - enjoy!
 
Thanks for risking your camera in the line of duty gaspirator. No question it's a loophole but the quality of the concrete is very poor so it looks like this one was built in a hurry in situ rather than being a prefabricated loophole.
 
cptpies said:
Thanks for risking your camera in the line of duty gaspirator. No question it's a loophole but the quality of the concrete is very poor so it looks like this one was built in a hurry in situ rather than being a prefabricated loophole.
Click to expand...

I had to use my old camera anyway, so had it been lost it would've been an annoyance, but not a disaster!

When I go back I'll try and get some better pics based on this experience. A few years back my brother built a device that allowed him to raise a camera up to take pics of the top of Victorian - 1950's street lights to get the maker's name cast on top. It was a long piece of square box section with an old tripod plate with proper screw thread at the business end - I may see if I can take this next time and put it to good use. Providing I can bear the embarassment of walking a mile from the car to the beach carrying an 8-ft pole with obviously strange intentions...

As for the concrete, yes - very poor. The exterior surround is very rough and of uneven diemnsions either side. I want to measure the interior width, so I may have to get some sort of scaled object on the back wall, take the pic and work out the size from that - it's so difficult because you're doing this completely blind!

- Pete
 
I went back to Cuckmere Haven yesterday and took a few more pics thru the loophole of the buried pillbox; this time I bolted the camera to an 8-ft long piece of box section and got further inside.

Off to one side; you can see the timber shuttering marks in the concrete:
cuckmere_2.jpg



One of the best pics, from right in the middle:
cuckmere_1.jpg


I got a few more pics which I'll post on my website in the next few days.

- Pete
 

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