Atwick, East Yorkshire

During my recent visit up to Yorkshire, I visited Atwick. As with much of the Yorkshire coast south of Bridlington, it is eroding fast here, and as with many sites along this stretch of coast, the front line defences have disappeared. The pillboxes surviving today were part of the rear line of defences.

It is easy to see why this stretch of coast was heavily defended - as a sketch I came across at TNA shows - the whole beach from Bridlington to Spurn was suitable for landings, the cliffs would have easily been passable to German infantry, with suitable gaps along the coast for tanks.

Above: A sketch of the beaches along the Yorkshire Coast (TNA) - the red areas are suitable for landings, the green areas not - and below a view of the beach at Atwick looking north towards Bridlington and Flamborough Head.

The surviving pillboxes are all of the Northern Command lozenge design. One which has its entrance sealed has all its wooden weapons-shelves in place. Also surviving in the area are two partially sunken posts, presumably these would be Command Posts (platoon or company HQ's?). They are not identical, one being larger with two rooms, the other smaller with one room only. They are the only ones I've seen along this stretch of coast and I don't know if others exist. They are not shell proof with additional protection given by covering with earth as images 7 and 8 below clearly show.

Atwick 'gap' was blocked with anti-tank cubes but the only remains of these now have been heaped up to act as sea defences.

Image 1-4: Lozenge pillbox with wooden weapons shelves still intact.

Images 5-6: The smaller of the two sunken posts, with pillbox in background (image 6)

Images 7-8: The larger of the sunken posts, with lozenge pillbox in background.

Image 9: The pillbox near the second sunken post.

Image 10: Remains of tank blocks, Atwick gap, now part of the sea defences.

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WW1 and WW2 Defences - Suffolk and beyond

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