"Things that go bang..." Topic

An 18th century cannon which had a VERY bad day
A WW2 Home Guard Blacker Bombard weapon mounting
Cannons and carronades as street bollards
An Alan-Williams (or Allen-Williams) rotating steel gun turret
WW2 concrete anti-tank obstacles and…
last but not least…
a very real ZSU 23/4 self-propelled radar controlled AA gun. All within a few miles of each other.

YouTube link

Enjoy!

Barry

More on the burst Wiveton cannon:

Norfolk Heritage Explorer says this:
"The cannon (NHER 24187) that stands on a mound in Wiveton Green is also a post medieval addition to the village. According to a local story, this cannon was one of a convoy being taken from King's Lynn to Felixstowe during the Napoleonic Wars. However, its carriage broke and it was left lying in the road. Local people then retrieved it and tried to fire it for their amusement at which point it burst. It was not set up as a monument until some time later."

Blacker Bombard:
Wiki suggests that some went to the Soviet Union under Lend-Lease,:
link

Allen-Williams turret:
Latest listing suggests that 33 still survive out of 199:
link

ZSU 23/4 Shilka:
Wiki says that early models were prone to cook-offs and runaway bursts of fire due to overheating:
link

The Muckleburgh Collection:
muckleburgh.co.uk

Barry

Very interesting. I looked at some WW II emplacements on the southern coast but didn't any of these. There were a line of anti-tank obstacles perpendicular to the road outside the place where we hired a car.

@Shagnasty:
You would be surprised where these things turn up. There is one about two streets away in our cemetery.

There is a small pillbox just 200 yards from my home while, around the corner in the next street, there are WW2 rifle loops in the end of a much older warehouse wall. The loops were lined up on where the railway station used to be… they were utterly determined that the Germans would not buy a railway ticket!

Barry