A bit off-topic - Yardley Chase - Ammo Dump
Gary Marden
Does anyone know anything about the old ammunition dump in Yardley Chase
in Northamptonshire, or can point me towards web resources?
The layout of the site is clearly visible on the OS maps of the area with
a large number of buildings surrounded by banks and moats. Tracks wend
their way through the woods showing where the railway lines once ran.
I gather the woods are still MOD property - presumably there is a small
risk from scattered ordnance.
I'd like to have a look round the woods so pointers to who to ask for
permission would be useful.
Cheers
Gary
Malcolm Stewart
Copse etc. Have you tried talking to the farmer?
(There's old and heavy concrete in Salcey Forest at SP799513 - just north of
the track after it bends to the east. Again not far from a dismantled
railway, but no indications of any bunkers on the Landranger 152.)
--
M Stewart Milton Keynes, UK
Gary Marden <majik...@cix.co.uk> wrote in message
news:memo.20011212...@majikthise.compulink.co.uk...
> Not exactly subterranean but bunker-orientated, at a pinch.
>
> Does anyone know anything about the old ammunition dump in Yardley Chase
> in Northamptonshire, or can point me towards web resources?
snip
Gary Marden
malcolm...@megalith.freeserve.co.uk (Malcolm Stewart) wrote:
> I assume you're referring to Chase Park farm, Hops
> Copse, Hay Copse, Sane Copse etc. Have you tried talking
> to the farmer?
That's the place although I haven't approached anyone yet. Chase Park Farm
looks a likely place to start though - thanks.
> (There's old and heavy concrete in Salcey Forest at
> SP799513 - just north of the track after it bends to
> the east. Again not far from a dismantled railway,
> but no indications of any bunkers on the Landranger 152.)
Right by the forest road then. No sign of anything suspicious on the
1:25,000 map (Explorer series) of the area - perhaps the site was more
thoroughly cleaned-up?
I count 26 similar buildings in the north part of Yardley Chase, and
another 15 in the south half. There also appears to be the remains of
platforms and a shunting yard beside the Denton Road too.
Gotta be worth swinging out that way in the Landrover one Saturday,
methinks.
Cheers
Gary
Malcolm Stewart
little (or should it be none(?) for this area) on the 1:50,000 is amazing.
I now understand your references to railway lines etc. (not shown at all on
1:50,000). Interesting to see that many of the bunkers are surrounded by
what appear to be moats. Should give future archaeologists something to
ponder about! I wonder what sort of ritual they'll invent? Ducking stools?
--
M Stewart Milton Keynes, UK
Gary Marden <majik...@cix.co.uk> wrote in message
news:memo.20011213...@majikthise.compulink.co.uk...
> In article <9v8m76$ju3$1...@news7.svr.pol.co.uk>,
> malcolm...@megalith.freeserve.co.uk (Malcolm Stewart) wrote:
>
snip
Chris Grace
> Not exactly subterranean but bunker-orientated, at a pinch.
>
> Does anyone know anything about the old ammunition dump in Yardley Chase
> in Northamptonshire, or can point me towards web resources?
>
> The layout of the site is clearly visible on the OS maps of the area with
> a large number of buildings surrounded by banks and moats. Tracks wend
> their way through the woods showing where the railway lines once ran.
>
> I gather the woods are still MOD property - presumably there is a small
> risk from scattered ordnance.
Yardley Chase is listed on the Defence Estates website as an area
which they still own, and there are several other references on the
web to it as an active training area, including one which states that
there are a substantial number of concrete sleepers on the site which
are to be crushed and used as hardcore. I wonder if there's still
track there, a look at aerial photographs seems to suggest that there
isn't.
Gary Marden
malcolm...@megalith.freeserve.co.uk (Malcolm Stewart) wrote:
Hi Malcolm,
> Had a look at the 1:25,000 map this p.m. and the detail
> compared with the little (or should it be none(?) for this
> area) on the 1:50,000 is amazing.
Yes, the difference is striking. A lot of my Landrover-owning friends
discount the 1:25,000 scale maps as covering too small an area for the
sheet but I'm quite happy to live with turning it over in exchange for the
vastly increased detail.
The moats are strange - I wonder if they're deliberate and intended as an
aid to fire prevention or just a relic of the banking and have
subsequently flooded?
Cheers
Gary
Gary Marden
ch...@icos.net.nz (Chris Grace) wrote:
> Yardley Chase is listed on the Defence Estates website as an area
> which they still own, and there are several other references on the
> web to it as an active training area
I suppose there's still a risk from discarded/lost ordnance but I'll be
taking a spin out that way in the coming weeks to see what's what and
who's who.
Cheers
Gary
Chris Grace
I do find this hard to understand. In my experience of the military
ammunition and explosives are usually stored in hermetically sealed
"tin cans" inside a wooden crate. They don't just have piles of
ammunition standing around and go and pick out a few hundered as
required, and stocks are rigidly controlled, so I wouldn't have
thought there was ordnance just lying around, forgotten. If you look
at the photos of old ammunition stores on the web they are completely
empty, not even an empty ammo box laying about (after all, ammo boxes
fetch a good price on the second hand market).
I can see that places like Shoeburyness and Ashfordby might be
hazardous because they were used for live firing(Defence Estates says
that Warcop and Otterburn are dangerous due to unexploded shells fired
on exercises and I remember seeing unexploded shells lying around at
both places), but Yardley Chase was an ammunition store and surely
they wouldn't have been doing live firing there.
Andy Foster
"Chris Grace" <CH...@ICOS.NET.NZ> wrote in message
news:dce1bf04.01123...@posting.google.com...
8><----
> I do find this hard to understand. In my experience of the military
> ammunition and explosives are usually stored in hermetically sealed
> "tin cans" inside a wooden crate. They don't just have piles of
> ammunition standing around and go and pick out a few hundered as
> required, and stocks are rigidly controlled, so I wouldn't have
> thought there was ordnance just lying around, forgotten. If you look
> at the photos of old ammunition stores on the web they are completely
> empty, not even an empty ammo box laying about (after all, ammo boxes
> fetch a good price on the second hand market).
>
> I can see that places like Shoeburyness and Ashfordby might be
> hazardous because they were used for live firing(Defence Estates says
> that Warcop and Otterburn are dangerous due to unexploded shells fired
> on exercises and I remember seeing unexploded shells lying around at
> both places), but Yardley Chase was an ammunition store and surely
> they wouldn't have been doing live firing there.
Certanily these days ammo is rigidly controlled, but this has not always
been the case. Post WW2 there was large scale dumping of ammunition, (much
of it in the Irish sea), but other quantities were dumped in mine shafts or
buried without proper records or control.
At P. Down they were digging up WW1 vintage gas shells a few years ago, I
saw on telly.
I have seen quantities of ammunition (WW2 US 30/06) at the bottom of a shaft
in Derbyshire, and charges in a storage area in Wales, so it is possible to
find stuff left behind. I take your point these are more likely to be duds
from live firing, but some caution is still wise.
Andy F.
PS Happy New year everyone
Gary Marden
CH...@ICOS.NET.NZ (Chris Grace) wrote:
> I do find this hard to understand. In my experience of the military
> ammunition and explosives are usually stored in hermetically sealed
> "tin cans" inside a wooden crate. They don't just have piles of
> ammunition standing around and go and pick out a few hundered as
> required, and stocks are rigidly controlled, so I wouldn't have
> thought there was ordnance just lying around, forgotten.
Thanks, perhaps not such a risk then.
Cheers
Gary