Wisbech Community Forum

IN WHICH YOUR BLOGGER DISCOVERS A BURIED REMINDER OF WISBECH'S WARTIME PAST.

CALL ME A SAD OLD GIT IF YOU MUST ......... (pausing for the inevitable chorus) but I am interested in bits of the past which are still with us, but not obviously so. For example, later in the week, we are going to explore parts of the old canal route, in search of half-buried remains of hardware and ironwork. For a few months now, I have been searching for one of these:

It is, as everyone will recognise, a 1940 spigot mortar emplacement. These were put up all over England, but particularly in places where the jackboots of the Nazi hordes were hourly expected to be stamping their way along the cobbles. A mortar would have been slotted onto the central pin, and a crew of highly trained Corporal Joneses and Private Frasers would be able to rain down high explosive on the advancing oppressors. The Archaeology Data Service shows that there was one of these somewhere near Wisbch Rugby Club's clubhouse. I searched, but found nothing. Then, after some kindly advice from the club chairman, I found it.

PUZZLED, I CONSULTED THE RESIDENT BATTLEFIELD ARCHAEOLOGIST, Young Pickwick. He informed me that where appropriate, these emplacements would have been built in a pit, and that the pit would have been filled in after the war. He expected that if someone were to dig down and around the top metal plate, they would find the bulk of the concrete support column. Who says University education is a waste of time?