During World War II, Britain created a network of anti-invasion defences. The Pillbox was a static defended outpost usually with a good vantage of a road junction, railway or the coast. Pillboxes were hurriedly built to fairly standard designs from poured concrete with small embrasures for observation and shooting. They usually take the form of small, single roomed, hexagonal, square or rectangular flat roofed buildings. Common features include internal blast walls, gun shelves and iron pig-tail rods used to fasten barbed wire.