Ilminster Stop Line Project

My hometown of Ilminster nestles between three hills, its fine 15th-century minster church and exquisite Georgian buildings creating a picture of timeless English tranquility. Yet beneath this peaceful facade lies a remarkable wartime story, one written in concrete and steel across the surrounding countryside.

In 1941, Ilminster stood transformed: fortified, wired, and ready for invasion.

By June 1940, as Churchill declared to the nation, “We shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender,” military planners were already constructing an ambitious network of defensive lines across Britain. These 50 stop lines were designed to slow the German Blitzkrieg that had swept so devastatingly across mainland Europe, creating a series of defensive barriers that would force any invading army to fight for every mile of British soil.

Ilminster found itself positioned along one of the most strategically important of these defenses, the Taunton Stop Line. This formidable barrier stretched 85 miles from the north Somerset coast near Highbridge to the Devon coast at Seaton, turning the peaceful West Country into a landscape of pillboxes, anti-tank obstacles, and gun emplacements.

More than eight decades have passed since these defenses were hastily constructed, yet their concrete sentinels still stand guard in the hedgerows and fields around my hometown. Some have been swallowed by brambles and time, others remain surprisingly intact—silent witnesses to a moment when invasion seemed not just possible, but imminent.

This project documents my exploration of these forgotten fortifications, capturing what remains of Ilminster’s wartime transformation through black and white photography. Each image tells part of a larger story about how ordinary places become extraordinary under the pressure of history, and how the landscape itself becomes a canvas for human determination and fear.

Part 1 Summer