Site Records

SiteName: Lydden Spout Battery

Dover
Kent
TR283389

Sub Brit site visit August 1996 and February 2003

The heavy hinged steel escape hatch to the underground plotting room is now severely rusted and required hydraulic jacks to prize it open. There is a square and a round hole adjacent to the escape hatch, these link to the ventilation trunking running into the plotting room. The square shaft is three feet across and fifteen feet deep with a steel ladder fixed to one wall. The fixings on one side have come away. At the bottom of the shaft is a horizontal tunnel with two lines of metal ventilation trunking fixed to the roof. The tunnel emerges through a steel door three feet above the floor of the plotting room itself. There is a short ladder fixed to the wall for access.

The room is clean with much of the original cream paint still covering the walls. There is ventilation trunking running in two directions although some of this has become detached and is resting on the floor at one end. There are a number of wooden packing crates on the floor labelled 'Containers Type C10 - Impregnated - 6/2/41'. Some of these boxes are empty while others are full and have never been opened with their wooden lids still screwed in place. A metal box contains small cylindrical filters and there are numerous other filters lying about on the floor so it is assumed that all these boxes contained filters. Some GPO junction boxes are still in place on the wall.

There are doors into two other rooms from the plotting room. All the doors within the bunker are still in place and in good condition. Opposite the emergency escape tunnel is the plant room which still retains all its ventilation plant, fan and chiller. There is a Westinghouse metal rectifier unit on one wall and on the end wall electrical switchgear and fuse boxes. Behind the ventilation plant there are further wooden packing crates.

The other door from the plotting room leads through four rooms to the backfilled main entrance. The third room (C) has coat hooks and the remains of a bench seat. Various electrical fittings still remain intact including 10 amp sockets, metal lamp shades, some of the wall mounted light fittings still have their glass intact. The fourth room (B) is full of soil and rubble which has been pushed in from above but it is possible to squeeze into one further room (A) where there are more wooden packing crates. It is unclear if there are any other rooms beyond the backfill and there was no evidence of the service tunnel that always goes around the outside of these WW2 bunkers so it seems likely that we didn't have access to everything. The general shape of the bunker resembles that shown on contemporary plans so there isn't likely to be much more.

Because of it's close proximity to a public footpath the hatch was resealed with concrete immediately after our visit and covered with soil to prevent any further access.

For a gallery of pictures of the plotting room click here

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