Fighting for Poole's war-time defences (From Bournemouth Echo)

Fighting for Poole's war-time defences

8:00am Wednesday 28th July 2010 in

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DEFENCES used to protect Poole during the Second World War could soon become protected monuments.

Local historian David Warhurst has succeeded in adding “dragon’s teeth” anti-tank traps and pillbox look-out posts to a council consultation on protection for the town’s “heritage assets”.

Mr Warhurst spent a year seeking out the remaining links in a chain of defence that once encircled a section of the town from Oakdale to Poole Park.

“The defences were built against the possibility of the Germans landing along the coast and attacking Poole ‘backwards’ to get to the port,” said Mr Warhurst.

The retired scientist began his search for the town’s wartime defences after writing a book on the Royal Ordnance Factory at Soper’s Lane in Creekmoor. “I thought: ‘Crumbs, there must have been some defences around it’ and that set me going. Nobody had recorded it before. I wrote to the National Archive and people told me about bits that had been left around.

“It took me about a year,” said Mr Warhurst, who recorded his findings in a book Poole Defences in World War 2 – Poole Anti Tank Island.

His search led him to 21 “dragon’s teeth” – pointed concrete blocks about five feet high and four feet wide – among allotments behind St Mary’s Church on Wimborne Road.

Similar defences had once stood outside every house in Garland Road, said Mr Warhurst, who discovered a surviving block in a lane leading from nearby Sandbourne Road and pillboxes at Sterte and Poole Quay.

Hazel Brushett, a senior conservation officer at Poole council, said an eight-week public consultation on monuments suggested by residents would include boundary signs and boundary stones.

She said listing a monument as a “heritage asset” would make it a material consideration in a planning application – extending protection previously offered only to monuments located within conservation areas.

The consultation starts on Monday, August 2. Visit poole.gov.uk.