Billing Hill Rawdon

The Parksider · Post by **The Parksider** » Sat 16 Jul, 2011 10:34 am

Supposedly has remains of second world war defences.Anyone know what and if they are still there?

liits · Post by **liits** » Sat 16 Jul, 2011 10:49 am

Remains of the Heavy Anti-Aircraft Battery. Photo courtesy of John Illingworth.

The Parksider · Post by **The Parksider** » Sat 16 Jul, 2011 1:21 pm

liits wrote: Remains of the Heavy Anti-Aircraft Battery. Photo courtesy of John Illingworth. Very kind of you to post this, very dumb of me not to find the pic on your fine Flicker site!

liits · Post by **liits** » Sat 16 Jul, 2011 1:55 pm

The Parksider wrote: liits wrote: Remains of the Heavy Anti-Aircraft Battery. Photo courtesy of John Illingworth. Very kind of you to post this, very dumb of me not to find the pic on your fine Flicker site! Not mine, I cribbed it from Geograp.org.uk

The Parksider · Post by **The Parksider** » Sat 16 Jul, 2011 7:09 pm

Best thing once the rain had passed was to go look see.The lane up to the Hill is walled either side and at one time looked like it had causey stones on it - probably for the quarry carts.Intersecting a lane that runs round the top of the hill the view from the south side is superb up and down the valley.I was sidetracked by the quarry - overgrown but not run in and very deep, moving to the east side I fould an old stone building (bottom two courses only - and a concrete raft with terra cotta tiles on it.Unsure what that was but once round again and I bumped into three large cast concrete/rubble blocks with six large bolts sank in them which I assume the Anti-Aircraft gun was bolted down onto.Only a 20 minute walk but a little belter. Liits - have I got the right bit?We have Wellington Hill and Billing Hill as WW2 gun emplacements - any more anyone??

simong · Post by **simong** » Sat 16 Jul, 2011 11:05 pm

Out of Leeds of course but I think there are some on Baildon Moor next to the trig point, which would make sense if raiders were using the Aire valley as an approach to Leeds. I seem to recall that there was also a gun in High Royds or nearby.

liits · Post by **liits** » Sun 17 Jul, 2011 10:48 am

Google Earth has [amongst loads of other junk] an overlay of the Defence of Britain Project. It gives the location of all manner of things like HAA Batteries, pill boxes, etc, etc. Also, I’m not sure how many people know this but it is possible to “roll back time” with Google Earth. It’s always been possible to see the previous versions / aerial shots that they use but over the past year or so they have been adding 1940 aerial photos to the timeline. Sadly, Leeds isn’t covered yet but huge areas of the rest of the county are. It’s well worth a look. If you click on the “Clock” icon in the Google Earth Toolbar, if the area is covered by the 1940 aerial photos they will show up and you just move the slider to the appropriate date. The closest to Leeds at the moment are either Leigh, Lancashire or up in the North East. They are getting there.... just slowly.