Godwin Coast Artillery Battery

The Godwin Coast Artillery Battery was part of the outer defences of the Humber on the stretch of low cliffs near Kilnsea and was the terminal of the Spurn Point railway that supplied the Spurn Point garrison. The site consisted of two 9.2" breech loading (BL) guns mounted in circular concrete pits, underground magazines, crew shelters and workshops. On the right and left of the battery were two observation posts and a single coastal artillery searchlight. The barrack accommodation was unusual, being substantially constructed of brick and concrete: it consisted of a guard house, officers’ quarters and a hospital. The battery was protected by a wall enclosing the landward perimeter, a network of fire trenches and a 20ft ditch filled with barbed wire.

Over the years the battery has suffered from the relentless pounding of the North Sea which has led to extreme coastal erosion. By 1993 the defensive wall was almost totally submerged and the gun emplacement to the right was collapsing, half lying on the beach, half on the cliff top but highly unstable. By 2003 both gun emplacements had collapsed onto the beach and the coastline had receded further and threatened the modern buildings.

A field visit to the site in October 2006 revealed that the gun emplacements were lying in substantial fragments on the beach and the broken sections of the structures in the cliff revealed the method of construction. Traces of trenches eroding out of the cliff face can be found nearby.

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