As part of the Defended Land project, Beaumont Brown Architects is undertaking conservation work to repair and present the sound mirror at Fulwell in Sunderland. It is working with Sunderland City Council, English Heritage and Limestone Landscapes to restore the structure and provide information and access to it.

@andrew_grantham Excavation Fulwell Sound Mirror @SunderlandUK reveals dish & plinth for Zeppelin detector #WW1AtHome pic.twitter.com/5QIY7T6QMH

— David S Beaumont (@dsbbba) March 28, 2014

Beaumont Brown Architects hopes this “will help explain this forgotten but vital part in the defence of our shores and bring a greater understanding of the peril that the people who lived and worked there faced.”

The Mirror is one of the few surviving WWI early warning devices designed to provide alert of impending attacks from ships and Zeppelins on North East industrial complexes and the eastern seaboard from the Tyne to the Humber. They were often located in pairs to provide triangulation to achieve a better position of the attacker. The Fulwell mirror is orientated towards the sky and its purpose is primarily the detection of aerial attack. It is one of the Coastal Watcher type or Track Plotting Mirrors and similar in design to the Redcar and Boulby Mirrors though Boulby’s construction technique differs slightly.

Source: Beaumont Brown Architects, 12th May 2013

@bbcnewcastle Just been interviewed by that nice Jo Lonsdale at Fulwell Sound Mirror. #wearingacoatforradio pic.twitter.com/osyx29A8OI

— David S Beaumont (@dsbbba) January 7, 2014

In January 2014 Beaumont Brown Architects were interviewed about the sound mirror by BBC Newcastle’s Jo Lonsdale, one of the producers of a new series World War One At Home which will look at how the Great War affected life at home.