# West down, Hampshire



## Bunker Bill (Feb 21, 2011)

West down.

Now a park area and woodland walks, from the main road there is a WW2 concrete road that leads up to the car park enclosure which i would think had quite a substantial building there in the past.

Cant find much info on this place, it is not far from Chilbolton airfield but i do not think it is connected in any way.

most of these buildings would be hidden from the air by woodland.

There are a number of concrete building bases and what I believe may be munitions storage area's, although not sure on them, they have no roofs and no sign of there being one, saw 5 in total but there may be more.

Also a nice pre-fabricated underground air raid shelter, which had the origional hand rail around the top still .

Close to this was another strange building with blast walls on 3 sides surrounding a internal building that looked like it housed some pretty big electrical equipment, this internal building had 4 openings on the 4 sides.

There were also a lot of bomb craters in the woods and surrounding areas.


Munition storage area's ???
























































































































http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k127/scotty102/Bunker Bill and Son/WestDown055.jpg

http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k127/scotty102/Bunker Bill and Son/WestDown047.jpg

http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k127/scotty102/Bunker Bill and Son/WestDown045.jpg


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## dazza (Feb 21, 2011)

*info*

High there great pics. while you were there we were in Ibsley photagraphing similar things lol.
Dont know if this is any help to you.

http://www3.hants.gov.uk/countryside/westdown.htm 

Dazza


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## sYnc_below (Feb 21, 2011)

Bunker Bill said:


> Close to this was another strange building with blast walls on 3 sides surrounding a internal building that looked like it housed some pretty big electrical equipment, this internal building had 4 openings on the 4 sides.



First four shots are of Blast Shelters, the 'strange building with blast walls on 3 sides' is almost certainly an Electrical Sub Station and would almost certainly relate to the nearby Airfield (RAF Chilbolton/USAAF Station AAF-404), as would the Blast Shelters


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## krela (Feb 21, 2011)

tocsin_bang said:


> First four shots are of Blast Shelters, the 'strange building with blast walls on 3 sides' is almost certainly an Electrical Sub Station and would almost certainly relate to the nearby Airfield (as would the Blast Shelters)



It'll be a domestic site serving the airfield.


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## davidralph (Feb 22, 2011)

I was wondering where I'd seen similar structures to those munition stores. Then it occurred to me - the local paintball site, being used as a "fort"! It's right next to Croft Circuit, which was naturally an airfield in a previous life. Makes perfect sense. Thanks for jogging the memory!


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## ricasso (Feb 22, 2011)

nice report, theres something about 40s wartime military brickwork, I wonder why so much of it seems to suffer from frost damage? maybe because of exposed locations or possibly poor quality materials.


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## Dexter24 (Feb 22, 2011)

I know thisarea quite well and this area was used as an ammo storage area prior to the D-Day invasion of europe. There are quite alot of tarmac and concrete path/roads and by scraping the leaves away from the area around the balst shelter reveals concrete bases and what looks like what could be some underground shelters.


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## Bunker Bill (Feb 22, 2011)

Thanks for that Dexter, often though of taking a rake with me  
Is there much more to see? 
Planing on another trip shortly as I heard today that the US Army used a part of it as a landfill site which is not far from there , and dumped a load of Jeeps, Bikes and other equipment in there as they did in a lot of places.
You never know might get lucky


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## ricasso (Feb 22, 2011)

Bunker Bill said:


> Thanks for that Dexter, often though of taking a rake with me
> Is there much more to see?
> Planing on another trip shortly as I heard today that the US Army used a part of it as a landfill site which is not far from there , and dumped a load of Jeeps, Bikes and other equipment in there as they did in a lot of places.
> You never know might get lucky



wouldnt hold your breath on that one mate! that same 'rumour' has been said about so many different US sites in this country, airfields especially, and to my knowlege none have ever been proved true!
anything left over after the war would be to valuable to bury, it usually went for surplus or scrap.


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## Bunker Bill (Feb 22, 2011)

Taken from another forum,

Not folklore at all Dave, I knew the landfill site myself, as the the guy working there would try to salvage dumped old bikes if he could. [Ten bob to you son]

Hard to imagine in these days of fanatical preservation and worship of the stuff but true none the less.

I once met a guy who in his army days had dug a trench and filled it with sidecar wheel drive Nortons, then ran a flame thrower over them and back filled [now under Crystal Palace running track)
Crystal Place itself was a wartime scrap dump where all sorts of stuff was chucked, and the proof of that was the famous hoard of Veteran and Vintage bikes salvaged from there by the late Percy Clare of Clares motor works Norwood SE London.
Nearer to me is the ****** Forest which was a vast ammo dump for the Americans[google ***** explosions] when they left they buried an awful lot of Jeeps and other kit which was soon dug up again by a well known local; he referred to the dump as "the gold mine" in fact there is still stuff buried there,they don't like you using metal detectors in *******tho...'it tends to go off....
I knew the family involved.

I have related before the stories of the 1960s car and bike dump at the end of the Hammersmith flyover, not a scrap yard it, was all driven in.

It would make you weep to know what the fate of all that stuff was.
I have buried several bikes myself as hardcore, used unsaleable BSA spares as reinforcement to a river bank.
I knew of several stashed under floors or in lofts[ wartime hideaways] and have seen them recovered from all sorts of hiding places, bricked up in air raid shelters even.

Not one of them was considered as worth polishing you see.............


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## hydealfred (Feb 22, 2011)

Nice one BB - never found ths on my visit - I also found this little snippet - 

The airfield remained until c1960, when agriculture returned to most of the site. An airfield remains operational on the southern part of the old airfield, and to the north, the public can still see Nissen hut and bomb shelter remains in the woodland of West Down. 

Courtesy Hants.gov


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## Dexter24 (Feb 28, 2011)

Bill if your planning another trip pm me if you would like some company. This site is very local to me about 6 miles.


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## Bunker Bill (Feb 28, 2011)

Dexter24 said:


> Bill if your planning another trip pm me if you would like some company. This site is very local to me about 6 miles.



Will do Chris


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## hydealfred (Mar 7, 2011)

There are three books available from Chilbolton village store detailing all aspects of the airfields history. They make very interesting reading. I have requested maps of the field from Hendon as I am keen to identify all the remaining buildings.


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## Bunker Bill (Mar 8, 2011)

Thankyou for that R, i'll take a look in the shop next time i'm over, it will be interesting to know what else is on the map. 
Have you seen the coffee coloured house in the village with the slits in the wall near the roadside? what are they all about, looks a bit Medieval 
It has puzzled me why there are so many Stanton air raid shelters at the Stonefield park area probably 15 or so, which is just a very small part of the airfield, then on the opposite side you have all those blast shelters grouped together, near the now public car park area, there must have been something or things quite substantial there, 
then just a couple of underground pre fab ones not far away, one by the sub-station, for the size of the airfield they seem to be only in a couple of places, I'm sure there must have been plenty of sand baged shelters about also, there doesnt seem to be any thing in the hanger area's or control side of things, any thoughts?


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## hydealfred (Mar 8, 2011)

I've not noticed the building in the village so will have a look again. There were a lot of shelters in certain parts of the airfield. I think it is often forgotten how important Chilbolton was during WW2. It was a satellite of Middle Wallop and was operational during the Battle Of Britain. I suspect it was thought that the airfield was a prime target for the attention of the Luftwaffe hence the shelters. However, so far I have not found any reports of the airfield being attacked. Andover, Middle Wallop and Worthy Down all certainly were during the BOB. Davidstow Moor airfield in Cornwall is another with many blast shelters which I believe was never actually bombed. The Luftwaffe always had the ability to surprise have a look at Operation Bodenplatte, the allies certainly never expected that, although it was disaster for the Luftwaffe it did prove the requirement for shelters even that late in the war. I suspect all the shelters were built "just in case". I went to the former bomb dump at Chilbolton on Sunday - one or two bits of interest remain. With regards to no shelters near the T2 hangar - this was a later addtion put in during the 1942 - 43 rebuild as far as I am aware, maybe it was then considered the threat had passed ? There were alot of shelters at Stonefield as this was one of the major concentrations of personnel on the base. The other parts you mention were fairly dispersed with I suspect not so many people about.


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## krela (Mar 8, 2011)

In my experiences the bulk of above ground shelters tend to be around the domestic support sites, these were quite often groups of nissen huts which were dismantled / sold after the war, this could explain why you see blast shelters with no obvious context.


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