NODAL Points

I have been looking at the DofB Database quite alot recently and keep seeing things marked as 'NODAL POINTS', what are they and what do they look like?

REF;91739 wrote:

I have been looking at the DofB Database quite alot recently and keep seeing things marked as 'NODAL POINTS', what are they and what do they look like?

They don't look like something specific.....significant defensive point.

DoB definition: "A designated area, usually sited at a strategic crossroads, with fixed defences such as pillboxes, anti tank ditches and gun emplacements, designed to act as a rallying point for defenders. "

Thanks Tigger, so would there be any common feature between each one?

REF;91747 wrote:

Thanks Tigger, so would there be any common feature between each one?

In the dim and distant past I read a home guard manual about construction and it had recommendations for the location of particular features. IIRC road junctions, joins in rivers and city gates were listed as ideal fall back points for defence. I've never really looked at stop lines as a whole (rather just random points from them in my wanderings) but looking at some examples from the DoB data would probably reveal anything they have in common. The home guard literature, which belonged to one of my great-uncles, may be in a box somewhere at my uncles house. Depending how coherent he is when I visit next week I'll ask him.

Thanks Tigger, I've not really looked into home guard, stop lines and pill boxes etc, its all quite interesting.

To put a bit of flesh on the bones of the above posts. The nodal point system was the successor to the stop line concept which was deemed to be ineffective even before it was fully completed in 1941. Nodal points were significant choke points on the rail and road network where the enemy could be delayed and were categorised as A, B or C depending on the defences allocated to them and the time they were expected to hold out. They were designed to be surrounded by the enemy and have all-round defences. Category A points were expected to hold out a week and would have had AT pillboxes, Infantry pillboxes and obstacles, these were often placed on a stop line so could make use of the defences already constructed. Cat B points were expected to hold for three or four days and would have had mainly infantry defences and obstacles whilst Cat C were mainly obstacles only and expected to hold for a day or two.

Thants for that cptpies, I am trying to work out what visible signs there are at these nodal points? Is there anything likely to exist now? Do you know of any that have any identifyable features left?

Probably the best preserved one in terms of completeness is Cripps Corner in East Sussex which consists mainly of obstacles and a couple of pillboxes. These days there are usually very few signs left at most Nodal Points but you might expect to see evidence of road blocks on all the roads and railways into the location, anti tank ditches and obstacle lines ringing the location and occasionally spigot mortars and pillboxes, the give away being ones facing in directions other than the main axis of attack for all round defence. There is no standardisation as the defences were left up to the local commanders and constructed mostly with what was to hand at the time. Cripps Corner is a pretty beefed up example but was probably only a Cat B or C.

Very little for some. King's Lynn was a designated nodal point, and according to published histories there were a series of fall-back positions to two defended keeps (one in the centre of town, one defending the river crossing). Much as I'd like to confirm these details, the mentions I have for this are unsourced. On the ground almost all the pillboxes have since been removed although there are a few ant-tank road blocks hidden in verges. Better preserved is a minor nodal point at the Foldgate, not far from former RAF Downham Market.

One thing I have found out from looking through the archives, requests for the removal of defensive structures (pillboxes, wire entanglements, etc) were dealt with through the county surveyors - so if you're looking for records of unrecorded and removed structures from a specific locality, their filed correspondence in county archives is a potential source. Urban defences were probably a greater inconvenience post-1945 and I would suspect more likely to be removed as a priority.