# RAF Harpur hill July 2011



## PaulPowers (Jul 24, 2011)

> For the central depot the RAF was forced to create a store: in 1938 it bought a quarry at Harpur Hill in Derbyshire; it built concrete storage structures within the quarry and then backfilled the hole with waste stone. Difficulties with construction and the weather prevented Harpur Hill from opening until mid-1940.
> Harpur Hill had been designated the central store for such devices in April 1940, receiving its first load in June of that year of mustard gas bombs evacuated from France. In June 1942 it was decided to move the bombs to a remote site at Bowes Moor in County Durham.



The main storage site is now used as cold storage, however there are tunnels that link into the site that for the most part have been sealed, I walked for about half a mile down this tunnel and didn't find the end.
sorry for the limited number of pictures but the tunnels were all the same.

The floor is wet due to the constant leaks from the roof.






















One of the joining tunnels that is sealed


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## johno23 (Jul 25, 2011)

Good pics and history on the placeGlad to see someone actually found it,unlike us 

Pleased to hear that some of it is still in use and not just left to rack and ruin.

We set out a while ago one wet Sunday morning to find this place,but our map slowly disintegrated and after trekking about ten miles up hill and down dale we gave up.

However on the way back to the car,we accidentally came across the HSE establishment which was rather interesting and then to put the icing on the cake we found Harpur Hill University campus,so the day turned out very well.


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## PaulPowers (Jul 25, 2011)

I've been looking for a few weeks so there has been lots of getting lost and walking about the moors


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## Kaputnik (Jul 25, 2011)

Well done for finding the place, Didn't know about the tunnels, thanks for putting the pics up.


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## urban phantom (Jul 25, 2011)

Nice one i like the look of this thanks for sharing


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## PaulPowers (Jul 25, 2011)

I'm heading back soon to follow the tunnel right to the end


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