Exhibition aims to showcase WW2 pillbox defences

An exhibition aims to preserve and tell the stories of rare pillboxes used to protect a county during World War Two.

Pillboxes have a semi-circular bunker-like structure and thousands were built across the country during the 1939-45 conflict in readiness for any invasion.

Many of them have become homes to bats, plants such as ivy, or covered in graffiti. Long Melford Heritage Trust is hosting an exhibition on Saturday and Sunday to showcase how the 1940 "Eastern Command Line" of defences has been engulfed by nature.

Elaine Symonds, trustee and project lead, said she hoped the exhibition in the Suffolk village's Old School would lead to some of the pillboxes gaining listed status.

The Eastern Command Line was a major defensive scheme built to protect East Anglia from a potential German invasion, according to Historic England.

Symonds said she was excited for people to visit the exhibition called Silent Witness: The 1940 Weekend.

"We're really hoping people pause and imagine what it must have felt like for the local community when they saw the pillboxes go up," she said.

"It was a tense summer where people really feared the worst.

"We want to reintroduce [the pillboxes] to the local community. A lot of them are under threat of being engulfed by nature [and] we feel some of them should be protected."

Mick Cant, 79, from Long Melford, has been a hobby photographer for 45 years and has spent the past 15 months looking into defences built during World War Two.

The exhibition features his photographs, a life-size replica pillbox projection, military vehicles, and volunteers in full 1940s Home Guard "Dad's Army" uniforms.

"[Pillboxes] sat there for 80-odd years and they've gradually bled into the landscape," he said. "There is a story here to tell."

"Most of them have become invisible to people because they are so familiar.

"I was quite fascinated by how they are used now... [and] by the way nature has reclaimed them.

"The majority of the people around here did not know that there were so many still in existence and so close to us."

Do you have a story suggestion for Suffolk? Contact us below.

Follow Suffolk news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.