The leafield underground workings were originally part of the Monks Park Quarry and were used for mining Bath stone from around 1886 with what is now the leafield site becoming known as western monks park. In 1914 the mining operations stopped and the area lay dormant until it was taken over by the MOD in 1937 and used for the storage of high explosives and ammunition. 4 years later the decision was made that it was no longer needed and it was shut down in 1941, but remained in the hands of the MOD. After laying un-used for 13 years, in 1954 the MOD began work turning the old ammo store into a storage depot for the royal navy along with Copenacre and Hawthorn. In total it took them 2 years and the removal of 250,000 tonnes of rubble. The Navy used the site until 1995 when it was sold off to Leafield Logistics, a government contractor tasked with the supply and disposal of mainly British Naval ships and equipment. A year later Leafield increased their security on the site to gain the highest level "List X" security clearance from the government, allowing them to store on site classified information deemed by the government as "secret or above"!! The next part gets a bit shady! There's no official information available but once in the site I found out the Duke Of York had officially opened the underground site on 31st October 2002 as "Leafield Explosive Handling and Test Facility" and that part of the underground site was used to store "Category 5 radioactive material!!!". The company also had ITAR accreditation (international traffic in arms) for shipping controlled military goods to the United States. In 2010 an 85% majority was bought by Portchester Equity Ltd who re-developed part of the site in 2012. Not long before this there was a fire in the underground complex which apparently started when a fork lift battery shorted out. The underground site was then split into 7 separate sections to help with incident containment., B, C, D, E, F, G and H. |then in 2016 Leafield acquired Tynemout Ltd, a supplier of electronic equipment to the MOD.
As one of the only reminaing places in the area to never be explored this had been on the "do list" for more years then i can remember. With every visit to Wiltshire there was always a "shall we go look at leafie" which only ever resulted in watching security do their rounds and pondering on whether the day would ever come. I had been to look at the site with Frosty and due to alot of police activity in the area and the mod plod being so wise now to exploring there visit were always short lived. But it was time for all that to change! After countless visits and spending hours having a good snoop about I finally got topside a few times and after a few games of cat and mouse with secca felt like I had the lay out well enough to go to finally give it a go. After carrying a ridiculous amount of SRT gear to site and somehow managing to get it all in I was all set up and ready to take the dive. There's very little information on the site anywhere and virtually no useable maps, so I was going to have to just go for it and hope for the best. I made it to the floor and found myself in a dark room with huge wooden doors and small glimpse of light shining through. After a quick check for anything likely to give me away I opened the door to find the lights on and the sound of machinery whirling away. finally I was in! I quickly located a map and slowly made my way around doing my best to try and avoid the various sensors. I managed to see most of it but unfortunately my visit was cut short, and always being one to raise the bar I returned a short time later......this time with Frosty, Gadget, Ojay. After a colossal brain storm we finally sorted the logistics and met up to see if we could pull it off. After managing to get topside and nearly getting spotted , one by one we made our way down. After an exhausting night we had finally done the whole site and began the hardest part of the night....getting back out again.
All in all was an amazing experience and well happy to finally get it ticked off the list, made even better that the lads got to have a browse too.
on with the pics.....
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As one of the only reminaing places in the area to never be explored this had been on the "do list" for more years then i can remember. With every visit to Wiltshire there was always a "shall we go look at leafie" which only ever resulted in watching security do their rounds and pondering on whether the day would ever come. I had been to look at the site with Frosty and due to alot of police activity in the area and the mod plod being so wise now to exploring there visit were always short lived. But it was time for all that to change! After countless visits and spending hours having a good snoop about I finally got topside a few times and after a few games of cat and mouse with secca felt like I had the lay out well enough to go to finally give it a go. After carrying a ridiculous amount of SRT gear to site and somehow managing to get it all in I was all set up and ready to take the dive. There's very little information on the site anywhere and virtually no useable maps, so I was going to have to just go for it and hope for the best. I made it to the floor and found myself in a dark room with huge wooden doors and small glimpse of light shining through. After a quick check for anything likely to give me away I opened the door to find the lights on and the sound of machinery whirling away. finally I was in! I quickly located a map and slowly made my way around doing my best to try and avoid the various sensors. I managed to see most of it but unfortunately my visit was cut short, and always being one to raise the bar I returned a short time later......this time with Frosty, Gadget, Ojay. After a colossal brain storm we finally sorted the logistics and met up to see if we could pull it off. After managing to get topside and nearly getting spotted , one by one we made our way down. After an exhausting night we had finally done the whole site and began the hardest part of the night....getting back out again.
All in all was an amazing experience and well happy to finally get it ticked off the list, made even better that the lads got to have a browse too.
on with the pics.....
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