Sound Mirrors Along The Kent Coast

Following the air raids on London during the First World War, it became obvious to the Air Ministry that any future conflict would undoubtedly include the use of enemy bombers flying over British cities. In November 1932, a speech was given in the House of Commons by Stanley Baldwin, in which he concluded that in any future war, expenditure on deterrents against attacking aircraft was a waste of time as "...the bomber will always get through".*

Experiments were carried out in great secrecy along the cliff-tops near Dover with a variety of concrete sound reflector mirrors that had been invented by Dr. William Tucker. Through the late 1920s and into the early 1930s a series of massive, long-range aircraft detector systems, were constructed along the coast from Romney Marshes, near Hythe towards Dungeness.*

Built of reinforced concrete, these enormous 'ears' would, it was hoped, be large enough to pick up the noise from an approaching, but still distant aircraft, and focus the sound by means of a probe placed at the centre of the dish to a central listening position. This probe was nothing more elaborate than a collecting horn for the amplified sound collected by the huge dish. From this, it was expected, a bearing could be determined.

The massive dish itself was nothing more than a huge amplifier, with the operator listening at the base of a periscope tube, down which two sound tubes fed directly into a stethoscope-like apparatus. The listener would then wait for the approaching aircraft, take a bearing and pass the information on to headquarters nearby. When two or more bearings were taken from several sound detectors along the coast, the direction of the aircraft could be calculated

Sound Mirrors At Denge / Greatstone

The 50ft Sound Mirror


The microphone would have been attached to this


& sound relayed to a concrete bunker underneath the dish

30ft Sound Mirror


200ft Sound Mirror


I've seen this name before??



These mirrors sit on a now dredged island, access is possible on one of the guided walks or if you are over 5ft tall and dont mind getting wet it is about 20ft across at this point



30ft Sound Mirror @ Hythe



Martello Towers from a different era on the coastline


Sound Mirror At Capel (between Dover & Folkestone)

Cap Griz Nez, France - only 18 miles away


Of course all of this proved to be a dead end technology - thanx 4 looking *

References:
http://www.ajg41.clara.co.uk/mirrors/dungeness.html
http://www.doramusic.com/Radar.htm

[boxfrenzy]

Nice report mate, and good photographs which show something I didn't really know much about at all. Good use of the people on it for size too.

[Mexico75]

Cracking report bud, seen these before but someone said they were built during ww1 for tracking Zepplins, didn't realise they were inter war or how huge they were

[industry]

Good report Mate with some nice pictures as well! There is one of there up near me between Sunderland and South Shields - I am going to have to go and look when I go back home to the NE now!!

I've always wanted to see the Denge ones, I remember when I first heard about them on TV, I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

[Trousercowboy]

Cool stuff there mate

[ERNIE99_UK]

Theres one at kilnsea on the yorkshire coast. old technology but workable!

[KingElvis]

Lovely, great selection there.

I love old barking WW2 technology

[MD]

nice one ive always wanted to see one of these
i like the look of the 200ft one

[Sandman]

Originally Posted by KingElvis

Lovely, great selection there.

I love old barking WW2 technology

may I sudgest you google " the great panjandrum"(spelling??) and "Sherman crab flail"

WWII technological developments at there finest.

There was a whole load of bizare stuff that was created for both the first and second world wars as one thing we seem to excel at is finding new and imaganative ways to kill each other