Monument record WLN 077 - Practice trenches of First World War to Second World War date

January 2015. Suffolk Coast and Heaths Area of Outstanding Beauty National Mapping Programme.
The site of military practice trenches of either First World War or Second World War date is visible on aerial photographs (S1-S2) to the east of a larger training area on Westleton Walks heath (WLN 058). The trenches of crenellated design, more typical of First World War training, could feasibly date to this period and they do look different to the surrounding ‘fresher’ Second World War training features, but may just date to activity earlier in the Second World War. The ‘trenches’ have little depth and may be showing as infilled features already in 1945. Although it is not clear how recently these features were either dug or infilled. It is hard to envisage how trenches of First World War date could have survived within a cultivated area for several decades without being filled in and obscured by later regimes. However it is hard to confidently the ground cover at the time, arable stubble seems most likely, however it is feasibly that it is improved grassland. Overall it would seem most likely that the trenches to relate to training activity earlier in the Second World War, however given the crenellated design it is feasible that this involved the re-digging of earlier First World War trenches still visible within grass.
S. Horlock (Norfolk Historic Environment Service), 2nd January 2015.