They Built a City Out of Sight
An underground 'city' which has taken thousands of men seven years to construct houses Britain's biggest ammunition dump. Details are secret but it can be said that the stocks are of incredible size.
This bomb-proof 'city' has barracks, offices, a telephone exchange, electric lifts, and an air conditioning plant. There is a duplicate electricity generating plant big enough to provide power and light for a city above ground.
There are fourteen miles of conveyor belts for carrying shells from the main entrances to the storage areas.
The nerve centre of this vast arsenal, the telephone exchange, is staffed by members of the ATS. One of them, Lance-Corporal Edna Bullin, has been working there for two years and likes it. 'You forget there is an outside world,' she said.
They constructed so many tunnels that the officer in charge says it took him three months to learn his way about.
Daily Mail, November 1943
In 1881 the hills on the North Western side of Monkton Farleigh village were quarried for Bath Stone. By the time the quarries closed in 1930 the whole of the hill was riddled with roughly 300 acres of tunnels.
During the build up to WW2 the War Department decided that there was a need for a large underground ammunitions store. It was decided that the required space could be obtained by converting four quarries, these four formed what was collectively known as the Central Ammunitions Depot Corsham. Monkton Farleigh mine was acquired and became the biggest of the four sub components, a total of two and a half million square foot was converted.
Some Photos from my second visit.
I can never get bored of this place i could just spend days walking around it. if you haven't seen this you need to no photos can really show just how big this place is!
An underground 'city' which has taken thousands of men seven years to construct houses Britain's biggest ammunition dump. Details are secret but it can be said that the stocks are of incredible size.
This bomb-proof 'city' has barracks, offices, a telephone exchange, electric lifts, and an air conditioning plant. There is a duplicate electricity generating plant big enough to provide power and light for a city above ground.
There are fourteen miles of conveyor belts for carrying shells from the main entrances to the storage areas.
The nerve centre of this vast arsenal, the telephone exchange, is staffed by members of the ATS. One of them, Lance-Corporal Edna Bullin, has been working there for two years and likes it. 'You forget there is an outside world,' she said.
They constructed so many tunnels that the officer in charge says it took him three months to learn his way about.
Daily Mail, November 1943
In 1881 the hills on the North Western side of Monkton Farleigh village were quarried for Bath Stone. By the time the quarries closed in 1930 the whole of the hill was riddled with roughly 300 acres of tunnels.
During the build up to WW2 the War Department decided that there was a need for a large underground ammunitions store. It was decided that the required space could be obtained by converting four quarries, these four formed what was collectively known as the Central Ammunitions Depot Corsham. Monkton Farleigh mine was acquired and became the biggest of the four sub components, a total of two and a half million square foot was converted.
Some Photos from my second visit.
I can never get bored of this place i could just spend days walking around it. if you haven't seen this you need to no photos can really show just how big this place is!
