Historic England's scheduling record (list entry 1425411) describes Observation Post 16, a stone- and earth-covered concrete splinter-proof shelter, also known as a bunkhouse, and its flanking artillery target butts, in an extensive area of shell craters 737 metres north-east of the summit of Okement Hill. It lies in the parish of Dartmoor Forest, about 1.1 km south-west of Steeperton Tor.
The shelter, centred on SX 6082088190, is cast concrete under a large mound of turf and boulders. It is 3.2 metres north to south by 2 metres inside, with coursed granite walls and an arched roof that seems to have been cast in place. The south front has a cast concrete blast wall 1.5 metres high with a handrail on top, which would have been used to feed a system of cable pulleys that moved targets in the flanking trenches. A gap between the blast wall and the side of the mound is the way in. The mound is roughly rectangular, about 11 metres by 8 metres and up to 3.9 metres high, with its sides held by a coursed boulder revetment 2 metres high, and the top is eroded in places.
The shelter is flanked by two target butts, both much damaged by shell fire. The east butt is the larger, a disturbed bank 29 metres long running about east to west with a ditch on the south side. The main bank is 4.5 metres wide and up to 1.5 metres high, with traces of sharp, steeply sloping sides and a flat top, and the ditch averages 4 metres wide and 1 metre deep with several deliberate kinks whose purpose is no longer clear. A lower bank a few metres south, 17 metres long, 4 metres wide and 1 metre high, is more damaged. The trench west of the shelter is a smaller single trench about 15 metres long, built like the other butt. The scheduling is in three areas.
Sources: Historic England list entry 1425411, which cites English Heritage Pastscape monument nos. 967045 and 966994 (accessed 22 January 2015), Probert, Okehampton Range: Monument Baseline Condition Survey (2004) and Francis, Okehampton Artillery Range, Devon: Report and Photographic Survey (2002).
Status: Listed building (Historic England list entry 1425411)
Grid reference: SX 6082 8819 (approximate, from the listing's coordinates)
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