Report - RAF Fauld Ammunition Depot - March 2012

[Oxygen Thief]

We've held off posting this site for a long time, even though people couldn't stop getting the glory elsewhere. Probably the same retards that, even though this is in the countryside, isn't overlooked, and had discrete access, managed to get it locked down and backfilled. Good work.

A bit of history from Nick McCamley...

A gypsum quarry had been converted to an underground ammunition depot and stocked to over-capacity in preparation for the D-day landings.

At thirteen minutes past eleven on Monday 27 November 1944 four thousand tons of bombs stored underground detonated en masse. The blast took two farms and much of the nearby village of Hanbury with it; seventy men and women lost their lives.

The explosion, which earned the dubious and lasting distinction of being the largest and most devastating on the British mainland, left a crater three quarters of a mile long and half a mile wide.

To read more about that and see some excellent historical pictures please see here... Fauld and here... RAF Fauld explosion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Interestingly, the Fauld explosion was 4kt, Hiroshima was 16kt. Also, more people died at the nearby Gypsum plant than at the ammo depot.

So, going back 6 or 7 years, I had a wander around the crater a few times. I was sure that somewhere in the crater there must be a hole into the remaining two thirds of the mine. There wasn't unfortunately. So I gave up, thinking that was that.

So a phone call years later and I was there with 'some people'. Jeez, how could we have missed the entrance. It's there in the old pictures for gods sake. And it was open.

Note: The site is split into three distinct areas - The High Explosive store and Fuse store which were accessible, and the Incendiary store, which wasn't. The pictures are all mixed up by the way.

Initially, you're into a very well preserved ammunition dump. No graffiti or litter. White walls. Everything still intact. So intact there was still a few bits of ammo kicking about.

 

[Oxygen Thief]

The ammo wagons. I didn't find them first, but they were good to find...

Note the water or fuel tender in the background...

 

[Oxygen Thief]

You could divide the High Explosive area into three zones. The first was mint, the second showed some light damage, reinforcements and smoke marks in the cable ducts under the ground. The third area was ruined - twisted steel, smoke, rockfalls and mudslides.

Like this...

I don't know where they got the green tiles from, seemed fairly out of place...

The offices...

Some more pictures from around Fauld...

And that was it really.

On my third trip I noticed the goon squad had arrived. The entrance was wide open. The lock was flapping in the wind, and the hole was blatantly obvious. None of that needed to be like that except for laziness. It's your fault the there's 500 tonnes of shite blocking the entrance now.

 

[canute]

Superb Shows the very different construction to other wartime sites. Very sad story about the explosion, sounds like it may have been caused by one careless person

 

[GAJ]

You definitely got better shots than I did Awesome to see this place looking how I actually saw it & definitely not how I photographed it

Top work OT & all the people who kept this off the radar for so long, it is a truly special place & I was gutted to find a hole chopped in the fence near the entrance on a site it was relatively simple to get in anyway. Take a bow you walk in at any cost & post it on public sites specialists, you fucked probably the best site in England over

 

[Ojay]

Take a bow you walk in at any cost & post it on public sites specialists, you fucked probably the best site in England over

And that is why only a very small handful of people knew about it for so long

 

[Dark Prince]

Kinda wish i had made the trip up now!. Simply stunning..

DP

 

[The_Raw]

Never knew anything about that historical event (the explosion), fascinating stuff.... Looks like it was mint down there, shame they don't do something with it really...

 

[FaZy_UK]

These pics came out really well mate, really do the place justice.

When we visited, it took a good 3 hours to find the way in, it was chained and hidden by a barrel.

However, the wire perimeter fence had been picked in about 4 or 5 places that we spotted, so quite obviously a few people had been visiting.

 

[Maniac]

What a f**king shame it's been blocked off now, it was inevitable thou. I was very surprised that they didn't do it sooner as they cleared the pathway right up to the entrance quite some time ago.

Those pics are cracking OT :-)

 

[Wevsky]

Nicely done..it did indeed appear on that other forum we all love so much blatantly in public and a few other sites i had found,but yeah none of the people i know who had been posted fuckall,shame its burned!

Really nice photos there mate!

 

[Raptor Jesus]

Now that's a cracking report

Such a shame it's been schealed now - but I suppose it was going to happen once the cockwombles got on it. Makes you wonder though, according to the graff, people had been going in there for decades.

 

[Punk]

Quality shots, shame it's sealed. Cheers for sharing

 

[pauln]

Looks absolutely mint inside. Superb photos.

 

[the126]

Very very nice

As others have said its a shame its sealed, Im suprised it was open at all