Monument record LKH 386 - Second World War bomb storage site on Lakenheath Warren

January 2017. 'Brecks from Above' and Breckland National Mapping Programme.
The site of a Second World War bomb storage facility is visible on the aerial photographs (S1-S3) on Lakenheath Warren. See ELV 106 for adjacent associated bomb storage area within Warren Wood, now the location of Centre Parks. Both of these bomb storage areas are likely to have served the nearby Lakenheath Airfield (LKH 339). Evidence of earlier Second World War training, in the form of weapons pits, is also visible.
The site is largely out of the project area and therefore has not been mapped or assessed in detail, in particular the western part. The main components of the site are three access roads or tracks with bomb storage areas at regular intervals alongside them. These consisted of an elongated cleared area, with a linear bank of spoil to the south – these still survive as earthworks on the heath (S3). Some of these bomb store locations appear to have a slot dug into the ground, others have the remains of an elongated structure, possibly a slab or sleeper. It is possible that the incendiary material would have been stacked and storage on wooden platforms or beams and/or on mobile units ‘bomb trolleys’ to aid the movement of material between the storage area and the airfield.
A group of five rectangular emplacements have been cut into the northern warren boundary bank (LKH 174) and still survive as clear earthworks (S3). Rectangular stacks of material, presumably munitions, can be placed within these emplacements in 1945 (S1).
S. Horlock (Norfolk Historic Environment Service), 24th January 2018.