Sunday 21 May 2017

Chipping away at history at Sorel A

Rough treatment damages historic bunker at Sorel Point.

The Jersey Kart & Motor Club are extending and modifying their track at the Loop Road, Ronez Point (A.K.A. "Sorel A" to those interested in the occupation). They say they are not removing or covering up the twin entrance twin bunker here, in fact they have uncovered it. It's interesting to see the top of the bunker and see its size from the outside, and how with two entrances it is in fact completely symmetrical.

The smaller structure (water tank? Generator housing?) to the side has been filled in. What concerned me more is the damage the diggger has caused to the edges of the concrete...
.. here very obvious on the east side entrance.
Looking west, we can finally see how this entrance is the exact mirror of the clear entrance on the other side.
Looking east-ish. More edges scraped. I'm quite disappointed with this damage! This is a historic, heritage structure, and the Club has failed to look after it. Shame on them.





Take a look inside and see how it used to be at crapaudmatic.blogspot.com/2016/05/bunkers-at-rn-sorel-ronez-point.html

Return to bunkers index page

12 comments:

Brian said...

That's a shame. I'll let them know on Unseen Jersey for you.

crapaudmatic said...

Thank you very much Brian, 500 hits already is mind blowing! Looks like the views:comments ratio is even worse than I thought, LOL

Anonymous said...

You lot are sad as fuck, just let the kids have a bit of fun. There is literally nothing in this island to amuse the younger generation. This is a perfetic excuse to try and stop the club having more fun and actually having something for the kids to enjoy. You wankers

crapaudmatic said...

High quality debate there :)
Nobody is criticising the kart club for karting or using the land, we are pointing out that damaging the bunker like this is a touch of needless vandalism.

Tom Brossman said...

Good to see you still going strong and exploring various parts of the Island. I still check this site every couple weeks, even though I don't comment much.

It is a shame to see this bunker damage but I expect that after reading your post here, someone will contact Planning and ask them to make sure things are being done correctly. Thanks for the info and the photos.

crapaudmatic said...

Hey Tom! Great to hear from you again. At the moment I'm really struggling (even more than usual) with the whole "am I wasting my time?" question, so it's reassuring to hear that you're still taking an interest!
But I will carry on at my own pace with the longterm project of providing a bunkers guide, as I find it's crazy how the States, CIOS, and major heritage orgs still don't publish anything. It's left to us amateur enthusiasts to all do it in our own ways, and none of us covers absolutely everything (I have the anonymous advantage on my side so I can cover the private land ones, LOL). Even the otherwise excellent CIOS book doesn't even have maps!
As the exploring season has ended, and everything is covered up by greenery, I may plow through the winter's photos here and there.
All the best, many thanks for commenting.

Tom Brossman said...

Just to clarify, bunker maps do exist and several local groups produce them. The Occupation Society do guides that are 10-20 pages long and are designed to be used by someone hiking around a specific area. These are available in most bunkers open to the public and only cost £1-2. Not all areas are covered yet.

The States are also doing a re-survey of all listed structures on the island and the CIOS are participating, and making sure important bunker sites are properly documented. This information is (or should soon be?) available from the States though they may charge a fee to access it.

Open Street Map is also an excellent resource and if you have not used it do give it a try. Lots of detail and community supported, unlike this blogging platform and Google Maps which exist for the purpose of serving adverts.

Full disclosure - I'm Secretary of the CIOS now (but not speaking for them) so I'm biased, but I do hope that people who want to contribute to bunker research will join the society and volunteer their time. Members may access society archives and produce documentation and bunker guides - this is greatly appreciated and is how all the existing guides were produced. They can also send me articles for the website and I'll post them. I see a lot of interesting stuff posted on social media that will disappear or be forgotten when people move to other platforms. Only the content on the CIOS website and in their archives is guaranteed to be preserved long-term.

I know you prefer to remain anonymous so I can't think of any way you might contribute to CIOS archives or publications, but perhaps others reading your site will come forward and do so. There is quite a lot of work going on now and loads more to do in the future.

crapaudmatic said...

Fair comment Tom, thanks for commenting again and it's good to hear that you're working within the CIOS to advance these things. I look forward to the day when we can all access complete (all known) information about Jersey's occupation heritage online. Cheers

Unknown said...

Here is a new map for you, I know you are not on FB. We made a now and then using a July 43 German map. Full res here: http://theoccupationdetectives.com/resources/7-43.jpg its out there to share :0)

crapaudmatic said...

I use FB in readonly mode :)
The map is awesome, brilliant work! I'll have to look up what the symbols all mean, and of course it's not quite the guide to all remaining concrete that I'm hoping to compile in my own way, slowly but surely... but it's an excellent resource so... very many thanks!

Unknown said...

Thats the best way & thank you! we have some more versions coming from different years and different organisations. Will send them over as we finish them. You may have seen but we have moved into a new larger capacity site so will be moving the rest of our research, pics etc over to www.theoccupationdetectives.com finishing off a year long project! Keep up the good work and if you ever want to come visit any of our sites just drop us a mail!

crapaudmatic said...

Thank you very much - I look forward to seeing more of the fruits of your labour!