The last few weeks have been intense to say the least, many 3 hour drives, many sleepless nights, a lot of hard graft and a lot of stressing over possible consequences of various actions. However when your putting up with it all for what has to be said is the absolute best explore you could ever hope to have, you just have to get on with it!
Il make the assumption everyone has at least a vague familiarity with what Spring Quarry was or indeed is. If your not sure then hopefully whatever I can prise from my brain will help explain. Quoting a paragraph from wikipedia and sticking up a thread full of unexplained pictures is not what is needed here. Indeed I was under the impression that I understood this place years ago but in reality, what you may read out there on the internet or in the various books covering the subject is at most vague and sometimes just plain wrong. Essentially we’re talking a large stone mine which was requisitioned during world war two and converted to a series of underground shadow factories manufacturing weaponry and aircraft parts. After the war some parts were abandoned and some reused the most notable part being converted to form a huge nuclear bunker, the size of a small town, intended to become the centre of UK government if a nuclear war ever started. Sound like somewhere you want to be in yet? I think so!
I guess it all started in November last year. I got word that a way into Spring had opened up and of course I shunned what ever I had planned for the weekend and headed down there. Alas, however, I was a day late! The window had past with only a handful of people getting a quick look inside. I put it all to the back of my mind for a while hoping for better luck next time. As it happens next time would be March this year, but again I had a similar occurrence and the window was missed again. They seemed serious about keeping people out! However this time I only had to wait a few days for another chance. This time its was frankly, a pretty scary chance and a chance for something id not ever imagined would be possible, not just a way into Spring but a way straight into the heart of the ‘UE holy grail’ that is Burlington itself. It just had to be tried and tried it was! It has to be said for the guys who had time on their side it worked out surprisingly well. You have to give a lot of respect to Kinger and his accomplices for pulling that one off but for me it just wasn’t going to happen. It just wasn’t possible to get the timing right and the one attempt we did have ended in some angry men, some fictional dogs and a lot of running away. In the end wasn’t too worried however, Id realised it just wasn’t the way I wanted to experience the place. Walking in through an open door required balls, yes, but it was just a little too easy and maybe just a little bit of a cheat. So between a few of us we set about finding our own way, a way that incorporated the epic infiltration experience id always imagined it would be!
Ive split my photos up into a few parts, and for once this is actually pretty necessary as theres well over 200 from about 6 trips underground!
Part 1 – The Bristol Centaurus Engine Works and Admiralty Stores
This part of the mine was used by the Bristol Aerospace Company to build aircraft engines. This is also the part of spring you may have seen photos from before when the guys got in there last November. Initially their factory was a lot bigger than what remains now but due to the construction Burlington around three quarters of it was lost. After the war the whole area was reused as stores for the navy until the 1980s and that means not a lot of evidence of the factory itself remains. That said even this part of the quarry alone was exceptionally interesting and a good crack to explore with its giant fans, air shafts, and drain culverts. Theres a nice generator hidden away in there and various sealed up blast doors with the noises of even more epicness seeping through!
This was my first foray into the mine and a solo trip as well so I was a little on edge knowing where I was. At times you could hear voices echoing about and even dogs barking but after a bit of creeping around it turned out to be coming down the air shafts from the base above. Un-nerving yes but nothing compared with the visits that would follow. It took about 4 hours to do ‘quick lap’ of this section on my first trip but we ended up delving further on subsequent trips for some of the more obscure parts.
Im sure you pro explorers out there will be keen to see it even has its own drain, id name it bunker but i think thats allready taken!
Il make the assumption everyone has at least a vague familiarity with what Spring Quarry was or indeed is. If your not sure then hopefully whatever I can prise from my brain will help explain. Quoting a paragraph from wikipedia and sticking up a thread full of unexplained pictures is not what is needed here. Indeed I was under the impression that I understood this place years ago but in reality, what you may read out there on the internet or in the various books covering the subject is at most vague and sometimes just plain wrong. Essentially we’re talking a large stone mine which was requisitioned during world war two and converted to a series of underground shadow factories manufacturing weaponry and aircraft parts. After the war some parts were abandoned and some reused the most notable part being converted to form a huge nuclear bunker, the size of a small town, intended to become the centre of UK government if a nuclear war ever started. Sound like somewhere you want to be in yet? I think so!
I guess it all started in November last year. I got word that a way into Spring had opened up and of course I shunned what ever I had planned for the weekend and headed down there. Alas, however, I was a day late! The window had past with only a handful of people getting a quick look inside. I put it all to the back of my mind for a while hoping for better luck next time. As it happens next time would be March this year, but again I had a similar occurrence and the window was missed again. They seemed serious about keeping people out! However this time I only had to wait a few days for another chance. This time its was frankly, a pretty scary chance and a chance for something id not ever imagined would be possible, not just a way into Spring but a way straight into the heart of the ‘UE holy grail’ that is Burlington itself. It just had to be tried and tried it was! It has to be said for the guys who had time on their side it worked out surprisingly well. You have to give a lot of respect to Kinger and his accomplices for pulling that one off but for me it just wasn’t going to happen. It just wasn’t possible to get the timing right and the one attempt we did have ended in some angry men, some fictional dogs and a lot of running away. In the end wasn’t too worried however, Id realised it just wasn’t the way I wanted to experience the place. Walking in through an open door required balls, yes, but it was just a little too easy and maybe just a little bit of a cheat. So between a few of us we set about finding our own way, a way that incorporated the epic infiltration experience id always imagined it would be!
Ive split my photos up into a few parts, and for once this is actually pretty necessary as theres well over 200 from about 6 trips underground!
Part 1 – The Bristol Centaurus Engine Works and Admiralty Stores
This part of the mine was used by the Bristol Aerospace Company to build aircraft engines. This is also the part of spring you may have seen photos from before when the guys got in there last November. Initially their factory was a lot bigger than what remains now but due to the construction Burlington around three quarters of it was lost. After the war the whole area was reused as stores for the navy until the 1980s and that means not a lot of evidence of the factory itself remains. That said even this part of the quarry alone was exceptionally interesting and a good crack to explore with its giant fans, air shafts, and drain culverts. Theres a nice generator hidden away in there and various sealed up blast doors with the noises of even more epicness seeping through!
This was my first foray into the mine and a solo trip as well so I was a little on edge knowing where I was. At times you could hear voices echoing about and even dogs barking but after a bit of creeping around it turned out to be coming down the air shafts from the base above. Un-nerving yes but nothing compared with the visits that would follow. It took about 4 hours to do ‘quick lap’ of this section on my first trip but we ended up delving further on subsequent trips for some of the more obscure parts.
Im sure you pro explorers out there will be keen to see it even has its own drain, id name it bunker but i think thats allready taken!
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