Report - Copenacre - Corsham (Dec 2013)

[Invader69]

Exploring Copenacre underground wasnt planned and purely by chance on the way to another area of corsham...

Copenacre started life as a bathstone quarry that had been quarried for it's stone since around 1850. Quarrying stopped sometime in the early 20th century and in 1940 with a need for underground storage the Government acquired Copenacre for use as a Royal Naval Store Depot.
Copenacre Quarry finally closed on 30th September 1995 and the quarry was sold off to Hanson to be incorporated into the nearby Hartham Park quarry. The surface stores and offices continued in use until around 2009.

These days all that remains of the site are the 2 travelators sat in amongst a load of newbuild houses,not sure if the travelators increased the house prices or not but i for one would be happy to look out of my window with one of those giant concrete beauties in view..

The explore itself was not as eventfull as hoped, a lot of areas were backfilled and it was so damp and muggy down there keeping the camera from misting up was a pain in the a#$% not to mention bumping into someone else from a distance.. explorers or staff, couldnt tell you, didnt hang around long enough to find out!

2 days after this explore we went back for a better look but all was sheeted off with 10ml steel sheet:-(

Thanks for looking

 

[HughieD]

That's fantastic.

 

[Calamity Jane]

Good report. Despite the back fills, you have captured some really nice bits down there. Like this

 

[Airfix]

That's fantastic.

 

[mw0sec]

...and this is wot it used to look like...

 

[DaveFM]

Aditnow says that there is still active quarrying of stone going on at the Hartham quarry which presumably link up with these workings.

 

[Invader69]

...and this is wot it used to look like...

Nice! Did you have permission access? Only asking as it looks so fresh and clean?..

 

[mw0sec]

No, I only visited in our usual manner, just after closure. Had a call from the chap that owned the quarry next door to say that someone had broken in through the bricked-up emergency exit. As it happend, I was working for the MOD and it was clearly my duty as a civil servant to take a group in to ensure that nobody was hurt or trapped... The pictures came from a former employee. Amazing how much moisture ingress & decay had already started on my visit.

 

[Invader69]

Brilliant!