Bunkers on the Serra Grossa
For those of you unfamiliar with the geography of Alicante, the Serra Grossa are a pair of hills which lie directly north of Santa Barbara Castle along the coast towards San Juan. They are bordered by Avienda de Denia and the seafront road between Alicante-San Juan.
Both hills are natural parks and protected areas and have quite a few walking paths arounds and over them, great for excercise and with some superb views.
The lower of the two hills (nearest Alicante) and directly behind the tram station for Plaza Mar 2 shopping center, has two interesting Civil War era bunkers on the seaward side.
Anti-Aircraft Emplacement
The entire bunker complex consists of a circular gun-pit with an ammunition bunker, about 60 feet of concrete trench (some with conrete top cover) and two small personel shelters/bunkers. The whole site is accessable and has been at some time renovated, it has however fallen into disrepair and poorly treated by local youths - rubbish and graffiti abound. 😝
Round gun-pit with ammo bunker and covered trench to the rear
Ammo bunker entrance
Inside ammo bunker - yucky
Looking towards the gun-pit through the covered trench
Turning right out of the covered trench toards the sea
This is a left branch of the seaward trench leading to a personel shelter
Inside the shelter strewn with rubbish 😒
Second personel shelter
Looking back from the access trench
Shelter 2 entrance
Inside - full of rubbish again 😕
Access trench to the rear of the position
War time image of this position which i found on the internet with a 20mm AA gun
Guard/Sentry Post
Situated only a short distance along the path are some steps leading down to this square concrete structure, which due to its exposed position I can only assume was just a sentry post.
The bunker is in a truely sad state of neglect 😠
A couple of shots taken 12/06/24 of this sentry box from the main road below
Today (120624) we went for a long walk around the Serra Grossa with our Spanish walking group. The route took us across the saddle between the two hills and high on the shoulder overlooking the old rail line and road Alicante/San Joan was a Machine gun position cut into the rock.
View from the position down onto the railine and road
Further bunkers and stuff I`ve discovered can be found here:
Nice. The WW2 “slit trench” my father and his chums defended at the top end of our village (on the outskirts of Sheffield) has long since collapsed and is now no more than a slight indentation covered in long grass.
ReplyDeleteCheers,
Geoff
The AA batteries on the headland above Mumbles (Swansea) were just overgrown and basically reclaimed by nature. Some of the bunkers I`ve fould here have been interesting and semi-complete, but most have been badly miss-treated by local youths over the years :(
DeleteGreat work Richard, bringing to life, a bit of 'recent' history, where the victors long wrote the history books; and the fact these have survived is a minor miracle. You could be paving the way for a 'time team' development on local Spanish TV!! Meanwhile keep up the great work on historical research and highlighting the archaeological potential. Great photos. Could also be a starting point for historical tours of SCW 'remnants'!!?? Carl
ReplyDeleteyou are far too kind mate, I`m just indulging my interest in things military.
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