First visited by BTP Liam in 2011, revisited 2017.
“I went on a day trip to Lavenham, in Sudbury back in 2011, and came across some relevant, although distant, material. On the A130 and A12 motorways, I spotted tons of pillboxes, most being either standard rectangular or 50p shapes, many identical (along the GHQ line). Despite not being able to park up and visit them, I did find one in a field further on in Sudbury, around 10 minutes in the car before Lavenham. It was of large hexagonal shape, and had an entrance in the form of a tiled slope-roofed ‘shed’. I didn’t go inside, being littered and gloomy, but I did manage to look in through one of the rifle/light machine gun slits around the outside. In the centre of the inside there was a concrete column, with some kind of square hole in, similar to that around the outside.”
In fact, the area in the middle would have been used to shoot down any enemy aircraft and the mount in the middle is where the gun would have been mounted.
“This would have been the heavy 20mm Oerlikon LAA gun, or possibly an adapted Bren or Lewis light machine – made initially for rapid firing at enemies on foot. This explains what I saw, although, unaware at the time, never realised that if I got on top I’d see something even more interesting!”
