Visited with Wevsky and Superwide, my 1st underground explore experience, thoroughly enjoyed, bit of history on the site,
Situated on the cliffs above St. Margaret's Bay is the site of a four gun, 5.5" battery that was one of the earliest of the protective emplacements that were rapidly established along this vulnerable area of the Kent coastline during the early years of the Second World War, these guns had been removed from the secondary armament of HMS Hood in the period 1935 - 1940. In the case of St. Margaret's Battery, the guns involved were all manufactured by the Coventry Ordnance Works. Manned by 411 Battery, part of 540 Coast Defence Regiment, the limited range of these weapons (less than 18,000 yards) meant that it rapidly became 'redundant' as a Coast Defence battery as the more powerful and flexible 6" weapons at Fan Hole Battery were commissioned. This led to the site becoming a training battery, until eventually the idea was hit on of establishing a 'flashing battery' here. Because of its exposed location near the edge of the cliff, any gun flash from here was fully visible from the occupied French coastline - this meant that when an enemy convoy was sited the 'flashing battery' could pretend to open fire using special charges, thus causing the ships to change course away from the expected danger and into the range of the (hidden behind reverse slopes) big guns at South Foreland and Wanstone.
(History borrowed with kind permission of Kent Hstory Forum)
And on with my pics, not the best in the world owing to my Point n shoot camera but now Im getting into this I think Im gonna go invest in a "real" camera !
1st A pic of the site as it was "Back in the day"
Looking back at the entrance and the hole of death
And a few of the interior
And last but not least a bit of original grafitti
My Thanks for taking the time to view my pics and hopefully they will improve in the Future
:
Situated on the cliffs above St. Margaret's Bay is the site of a four gun, 5.5" battery that was one of the earliest of the protective emplacements that were rapidly established along this vulnerable area of the Kent coastline during the early years of the Second World War, these guns had been removed from the secondary armament of HMS Hood in the period 1935 - 1940. In the case of St. Margaret's Battery, the guns involved were all manufactured by the Coventry Ordnance Works. Manned by 411 Battery, part of 540 Coast Defence Regiment, the limited range of these weapons (less than 18,000 yards) meant that it rapidly became 'redundant' as a Coast Defence battery as the more powerful and flexible 6" weapons at Fan Hole Battery were commissioned. This led to the site becoming a training battery, until eventually the idea was hit on of establishing a 'flashing battery' here. Because of its exposed location near the edge of the cliff, any gun flash from here was fully visible from the occupied French coastline - this meant that when an enemy convoy was sited the 'flashing battery' could pretend to open fire using special charges, thus causing the ships to change course away from the expected danger and into the range of the (hidden behind reverse slopes) big guns at South Foreland and Wanstone.
(History borrowed with kind permission of Kent Hstory Forum)
And on with my pics, not the best in the world owing to my Point n shoot camera but now Im getting into this I think Im gonna go invest in a "real" camera !
1st A pic of the site as it was "Back in the day"
Looking back at the entrance and the hole of death
And a few of the interior
And last but not least a bit of original grafitti
My Thanks for taking the time to view my pics and hopefully they will improve in the Future
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