Wanstone Farm was located on the west side of St Margaret’s, to the rear of South Foreland Lighthouse. Here the 233 Independent Maintenance Battery was located, whose job it was to maintain all the guns in the area. As the War progressed, five new long-range batteries were created to fire at enemy shipping in the Channel. They were positioned along the coast around the village of St Margaret’s and were known as ‘Winnie‘, ‘Clem‘, ‘Jane‘ ‘Pooh‘ and ‘Bruce‘. Jane and Clem were two 15-inch guns that came into operation in August 1942, and were located on Wanstone farm. Jane was originally designed for HMS Repulse and named after a Daily Mirror cartoon character. Clem was said to be named after the Labour leader Clement Attlee (1883-1967) or Winston Churchill’s (1874-1965) wife Clementine (1885-1977).

The two guns were wire wound and made of a composite of steel and steel wire. This construction was introduced in the 1890’s to deal with the increased barrel pressures caused by the use of the then new propellant – cordite. These were the nearest of the big guns to the Windmill. Although quite some distance away, they would have shattered windows when they were fired if they had not been boarded up