Quote:
Originally Posted by Alan J.
I believe the cafe was in fact the housing for a costal defence gun to cover the area from Hauxley point to Boulmer point and the harbour entrance. There were underground rooms beneath it presumably for ammunition storage, these were used in the 1950's as a body building / weight training club by some local youths. The cafe was operated for a while by a man named Hughes who also had an ice cream kiosk near the East cemetery and later was the mine host at the Dock Hotel, late 1950's. He also, prior to this had a toy shop and lending library where the TSB is now. The caravans on the links were blown over more than once during their time and were moved over to their present site when the council decided to get more organised and this was the begining of the caravan park as we know it today
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That's interesting. Just realised my uncle was one of those 'youths' you mention - I knew he did some training over in that location in some war time building or other and now understand from what you say it must be the ammo bunker of that gun emplacement.
pic below, not a good one but you can see this is a concrete structure: