A Defended Land

The covers of all four trail leaflets

Groundwork North East and Sunderland City Council are working to conserve and interpret a significant coastal stretch of the area’s long history of military defences. Linking to existing information and visitors centres we will enable local people, schools and other groups to learn about the history of local coastal defence and the wider military history of the area.

This Project has now completed

Defended Land Trail Leaflets

See below four leaflets to download (produced by Groundwork) detailing the Defended Land walks.

Interpretation Panels

The Defended Land Project worked with schools around Sunderland and South Tyneside to develop learning materials about the military history of their areas. These have been translated into interpretation panels which you can see below:

Restoring Fulwell Acoustic Mirror

You can find a WW1 Acoustic Mirror in the allotments in the south east corner of Fulwell Quarry open space. The Acoustic Mirror was an early precursor of radar, used to give an extra 15 minutes warning of zeppelin attacks.

When we first came across it, the mirror was hidden in scrub and only the top 60% of the mirror was visible above ground. Initially Groundwork worked with the Southwick Neighbourhood Youth Project to clear the scrub from the site. The ground was then cleared by contractors. We found following surveys that there was a mixture of pigeon excrement and asbestos in the ground burying the mirror, and we had to get the soil removed in an appropriate way. Experts analysed the concrete and repaired the monument with material of the same composition.

The site has been landscaped including wildflower, parking spaces created and interpretation was put into place. The public can visit the site when the allotments are open.

Download a copy of Fulwell Acoustic Mirror Interpretation Panel (PDF, 9Mb)