Off the Beaten Track in Somerset: Tank Training on North Hill during the Second World War

In 1942 North Hill was taken into military control and it became the Minehead Armoured Vehicle Fighting Range. It was one of five new tank training grounds in Britain. Civilian access to North Hill was banned and the farms at East and West Myne were evacuated. A number of buildings were constructed, some with underground storage facilities, which were probably used either as air raid shelters or for the storage of tank ammunition.

A concrete tank marshalling area was constructed at Moor Wood. Four Nissen huts were probably also erected in this area, to provide accommodation for soldiers. 21 slit trenches (2 metres long by 1 metre wide) were constructed in this area, although their original purpose is unclear: they may have been part of the firing range or part of the defences of the nearby radar station.

Concrete roads were constructed that led west from Moor Wood to the tank firing ranges where there were three large triangles, which the tanks drove round and some sections of light railway, which were used to support moving targets.

Canadians troops, who had helped construct the site were the first to use it. 100 units were trained at North Hill in 1943, including many American troops preparing for D-Day. Compared to other tank training grounds, such as Castlemartin in Pembrokeshire and Kirkcudbright in Dumfries and Galloway, the site at North Hill was small and offered only 3 firing areas with limited firing arcs. However in the second half of 1944 it was used to train 40 American armoured units, which was more than at any other site.

The site closed on 9th November 1944 and the land was returned to civilian use, although the farmhouses at East and West Myne were not reoccupied. By the 1950s the buildings had all been removed. However the concrete bases of the Nissen huts and the tank marshalling area at Moor Wood can still be seen, as can sections of concrete road further west.

The RADAR (RAdio Detecting And Ranging) station at North Hill was completed by February 1942, It housed equipment, which was used to detect ships and aircraft flying at less than 500 feet. It was known as a Chain Home Low (CHL) Station. Inside the main concrete building there were three rooms and a hole in the roof connected the equipment inside to an external rotating antenna on a 10 foot high gantry. There was a cluster of other associated buildings nearby: operations, power, administration and standby blocks. The radar station was staffed 24 hours a day, often by women. By 1944 there were 244 radar stations across the country. The radar station at Minehead closed in 1946 and most of the buildings, apart from the radar station itself had been demolished by 1950.