Whitstable formed part of a ‘Stop Line’, which ran along the entire length of the southern and eastern coasts of England. The purpose of this defence line was twofold. Firstly to make enemy landings as difficult as possible and secondly to harass and delay any columns of troops or vehicles which might have gained a foothold. In both cases the intention was to gain time for mobile units of the regular army to arrive and throw back the attack.
It was clearly not going to be possible to provide anything other than ‘passive’ resistance along most of the beaches. This took the form of barbed wire entanglements, tubular steel scaffold barriers and concrete blocks. The latter were 5ft.square cubes, cylinders standing on end and ‘pimples‘ or ‘dragons teeth’ which were pyramids of two or three feet in height. The wire was of course a most useful anti personal defence and the scaffold barrier was found to be a remarkably simple but effective hindrance to tanks. Particularly when there was no possibility of ‘taking a run at them’. Hence they were prominent along the top of Tankerton slopes and at the waters edge elsewhere. ‘Dragons Teeth’ were used extensively to block roads and open spaces around the harbour and adjacent to the ‘backwater’ (the Gorrel Tank). After 50 years it is still possible to find the occasional concrete barrier still in place.
WW2 Defence Scaffold
