Foxborough Hall Farm (or Foxburrow / Foxboro) is near Melton, Woodbridge and is now the home of Suffolk Wildlife Trust.
No personnel posted to this Patrol.
The main chamber is a typical elephant shelter built in an area of woodland, surrounded by fields, near a farm track. The chamber is now silted up. The trees in the area were flattened in the 1987 storm so the trees in the area are planted after.
The structure was originally entered through a drop-down shaft (filled in/collapsed) by the south-eastern corner. The shaft was lined with corrugated sheeting.
An approximately 10 foot long passage (collapsed) leads from the entrance shaft to what appears to have been an antechamber. The earthen walls of this chamber (collapsed) appear to have been stabilised with wire mesh.
The main chamber is 12 foot long and in good condition, but filled with a deep layer of sand that has trickled in through the doorways at both ends. The walls were originally painted off-white (standard army issue off-white lead paint) much of which is still in place.
The main chamber was accessed through a central doorway. Both earthen end walls of the main chamber were lined with corrugated sheeting.
A ceramic ventilation pipe can be seen at the south end of the chamber immediately beside (to the west of) the entrance doorway.
The main chamber was exited through a central doorway, immediately adjoined by a 16 foot long escape tunnel (collapsed apart from a section that is blocked/inaccessible).
Foxborough Hall Farm OB
This OB, at present, cannot be associated with an individual Patrol. It may be a second OB for a nearby Patrol, an OB used by the Scout Section, or a training, central storage or distribution site of stores for Group 4.
In their book, Churchill's Secret Auxiliary Units of Norfolk and Suffolk, Simak and Pye state the OB was discovered by teenage poachers in 1943 and so abandoned. Brian Ward had discovered the location in 1943, when, as teenager he had visited the woodland with his brother, in the hope of catching a rabbit for the pot. The two boys came upon what looked like a manhole cover and whilst still wondering what it might do here in the middle of the woods, they heard male voices from below, and ran away. Apparently the Patrol members had assembled in their OB, neglecting to disguise the hatch covering the entrance to it.
Please contact us if you can help.
Gareath Evans
Suffolk Wildlife Trust
Churchill's Secret Auxiliary Units of Norfolk and Suffolk by Simak and Pye