Newbiggin-by-the-Sea WW2 remains

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jonney

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well today wasn't the best of weather to go out and about but I thought sod it and went anyway. At one point, after being soaked through with torrential rain, shot blasted with hailstones the size of small marbles and blown about with gale force winds, I even started to question my sanity. I ended up in Northumberland at Newbiggin-by-the-Sea to have a look at the WW2 remains and I wasn't disappointed. The Northumbrian coastline was heavily defended during WW2 and the following cover 3 bays of the coast line from Lynemouth to the river Wansbeck.

I'll start with the furthest South which comprises a vickers machine gun emplacement and a sandbag pillbox

The machine gun position
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Doorway
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I couldn't get inside because it was bricked up to the size of an embrasure
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camera through the door opening shot
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Through the embrasure
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The gun shelf with wood still in place
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The sandbag pillbox (the DoB has this marked up as an infantry post)
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Embrasure
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Doorway
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internals
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Moving on we come to a Vickers machine gun emplacement and a gun emplacement
(both of which are bricked up but I knew that before I went there)

The Vickers emplacement
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the back filled doorway
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There were broken bits of pillbox all over
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The gun emplacement
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how long before the sea claims another victim
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Anti tank blocks stretched along the beach
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with some oddities (any ideas?)
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DSCF4717.jpg


Right that's enough for now I will post the rest shortly
Thanks for looking
Jon
 
Moving swiftly on I had a hike and a half to get to my last port of call but found a couple of DoB mistakes on the way. The DoB has 2 pillboxes, S0007146 a removed lozenge pillbox and S0007147 a removed rectangular pillbox, marked on the map but they are actually the wrong way round. The remains of both can still be seen

S0007146 (vickers machine gun emplacement)
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original barbed wire post
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S0007147 (lozenge pillbox)
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Then on to the last part and first of all a smashed up vickers machine gun position (not on the DoB)
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The gun shelf
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Another Vickers machine gun emplacement S0006987 marked as a pillbox variant
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DSCF4761.jpg


DSCF4762.jpg


internals
DSCF4764.jpg


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DSCF4766.jpg


And finally the Hotchkiss gun emplacement S0007192
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DSCF4747.jpg


DSCF4748.jpg


internals
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DSCF4751.jpg


the gun holdfast
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don't think the locals know the war is over lol...
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view from the embrasure complete with anti tank block
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Behind the emplacement was a load of rubble which I think, judging by the thickness of the pieces, was the magazine
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well that's nearly all folks...on the way home I stopped and took this photo the DoB has it marked as a defended building but I'm not sure about that
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And that's all folks thanks for having a look and hope you enjoyed the photos

Jon
 
Crackin stuff there mate well worth the soaking ? :) Theres some serious concrete lying around up there
 
Great pics jonney, I do like them shuttered pillboxes. I bet its like a big jigsaw puzzle working out all them pieces of concrete?
 
Great report and worth the soaking bythe look. Allways sadden me to see broken up relics and blocked up pillboxes, it looks like nature is having it's way as well. Like to defended building, a loophole in a wall.:)
 
Great pics jonney, I do like them shuttered pillboxes. I bet its like a big jigsaw puzzle working out all them pieces of concrete?

Winch it was exactly like a giant jigsaw puzzle when you walk along the beach there are bits of concrete everywhere some of which were easily recognizable but there were other bits I wasn't so sure about. The DoB has a couple of more pillboxes marked as removed along this stretch of coast line so some of it could have been from them
DSCF4734.jpg


NC these two that were blocked up were because of the caravan site they are next to the residents were complaining because the youngsters were having drink/drugs parties in them and like anpanman says it has been one of the less fortunate sites. I wish the magazine had still been intact and I'm still bothered by the broken vickers post, the way the remains lie (and the sheer size and weight of them) I think there could have been 2 side by side
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note the embrasure concrete block is well off to the right, and stiiling the right way up, of the rest of the pillbox
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Oldscrote the youth up here are under the impression that anything will burn and will try to set light to any old building for fun
 
Nice work jonney. Shame there's so much of it smashed up, makes me realise how lucky I am down here.

Vickers PB's usually come in pairs as far as I know, at least all the ones I've come across down here do anyway. :)
 
Nice work jonney. Shame there's so much of it smashed up, makes me realise how lucky I am down here.


Vickers PB's usually come in pairs as far as I know, at least all the ones I've come across down here do anyway. :)

well the sandbag pillbox and the vickers were together, the sealed up gun emplacement and the sealed up vickers were together and the hotchkiss emplacement had the complete vickers and the broken vickers next to it. The thing that is doing my head in about it is the way the broken bits of the vickers is lying. The only way it could have got like that is if the roof had slid off and traveled about 20 foot landing the right way up and not damaging it then the wall had ripped away from the embrasure and flipped over 180 degrees and again moved about 20 foot.... why do I always find things that do my head in lol

here's the flash earth link for it which shows how the broken one sits
http://www.flashearth.com/?lat=55.19903&lon=-1.512451&z=19.6&r=0&src=msl
 
Last edited:
Hi there, I'm not a WW2 enthusiast but I am local to this area and there's even more if you continue northward up the coast line.

I'm not sure about this but there are local legends regarding the buliding under this link, I don't know if it it's military or not but it stands out like a sore thumb and is of unusual construction.

http://www.flashearth.com/?lat=55.262114&lon=-1.56736&z=20&r=0&src=msl

There's loads of those tank traps along the coastline around here and I distinctly remeber visiting some of those (what I'd call pillboxes) when I was a child before the sea got at them and they collapsed.

Also I don't know if this is of interest to you or not but there's one of those sandbag style pillboxes defending a bridge which isn't far from newbiggin which has all but disappeared into the earth under the following link (you can just about crawl inside from the rear)

It's impossible to see on this link but I assure you it's there as I drive past it most days.
http://www.flashearth.com/?lat=55.16945&lon=-1.631836&z=18.1&r=0&src=msl

Back up the road a bit there's what I'd call a "mint condition" pillbox on the edge of this farm next to the old drift mine (now flooded)
http://www.flashearth.com/?lat=55.177323&lon=-1.618343&z=19.8&r=0&src=msl

Not sure what the strategic advantage of defending this position would be but there's a pillbox there nonetheless.

I know of several others around Northumberland and I've always marked them but never visited most. I know of a really interesting one that's hidden in the side of a rock outcropping up the A1 that you'd never find unless you stumbled across it, PM me for details if you're interested as I don't really want chavs etc finding it and wrecking the place.

Oh and Edit - a lot of the pillboxes were bricked up as pikeys who like to steal cable used them to burn the insulation off inside them.
 
Hi there, I'm not a WW2 enthusiast but I am local to this area and there's even more if you continue northward up the coast line.

I'm not sure about this but there are local legends regarding the buliding under this link, I don't know if it it's military or not but it stands out like a sore thumb and is of unusual construction.

http://www.flashearth.com/?lat=55.262114&lon=-1.56736&z=20&r=0&src=msl

There's loads of those tank traps along the coastline around here and I distinctly remeber visiting some of those (what I'd call pillboxes) when I was a child before the sea got at them and they collapsed.

Also I don't know if this is of interest to you or not but there's one of those sandbag style pillboxes defending a bridge which isn't far from newbiggin which has all but disappeared into the earth under the following link (you can just about crawl inside from the rear)

It's impossible to see on this link but I assure you it's there as I drive past it most days.
http://www.flashearth.com/?lat=55.16945&lon=-1.631836&z=18.1&r=0&src=msl

Back up the road a bit there's what I'd call a "mint condition" pillbox on the edge of this farm next to the old drift mine (now flooded)
http://www.flashearth.com/?lat=55.177323&lon=-1.618343&z=19.8&r=0&src=msl

Not sure what the strategic advantage of defending this position would be but there's a pillbox there nonetheless.

I know of several others around Northumberland and I've always marked them but never visited most. I know of a really interesting one that's hidden in the side of a rock outcropping up the A1 that you'd never find unless you stumbled across it, PM me for details if you're interested as I don't really want chavs etc finding it and wrecking the place.

Oh and Edit - a lot of the pillboxes were bricked up as pikeys who like to steal cable used them to burn the insulation off inside them.

Cheers for that mate I did the defenses round the first flashearth link a few weeks ago there was that much I had to put it into 3 threads.

[ame]http://www.derelictplaces.co.uk/main/showthread.php?t=18508[/ame]
[ame]http://www.derelictplaces.co.uk/main/showthread.php?p=186085[/ame]
[ame]http://www.derelictplaces.co.uk/main/showthread.php?t=18514[/ame]

The consensus of opinion is that the building was an observation post for the ww2 bombing range that started about 1/2 mile south from it. I have seen some photo's of the sandbag pillbox but never visited it yet. My list of to do's keeps getting bigger and bigger lol
I have sent you a pm mate
 
Hi there, I'm not a WW2 enthusiast

If you hang around in this thread long enough you will be assimilated. Many but not all of the UK's WW2 defences are listed in the Google earth overlay in my sig. You have already provided me with the correct location for the sandbag pillbox which was shown a few hundred meters away from your correct location. If you know of any other sites that are missing from the overlay or mispositioned please let me know.
 

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