A few weeks back I had the opportunity to visit a vast very recently closed military base before it all gets flattened in the near future, we only managed to see the accomodation and communal side of the base then before running out of energy and time.
Fast forward a bit and I once again found myself on site, and after signing in with security off we went once more. This time our focus was the sprawling TTA side, or Technical Training Area, which trained recruits in all manner of disciplines from firearms, welding, engines and transmissions construction, machine tools and other heavy industries. This place was unbelievably massive, and after walking around it for seven hours, and walking ten miles according to my friends fancy smart watch we were exhausted.
Overall I would say we got into less than half of the bigger buildings on this side, and after leaving them the security team went round re-securing everything for us.
This will be very photo heavy as can be expected!
The first building we found was the former welding facility, recruits were trained in both arc and oxy-acetylene welding in this building.
The next building was the former electrical engineering and engine/transmissions building, but in earlier life it had a much more heavy industrial use. There was a load of random stuff dumped in here in one corner, presumably from some old exhibition or something.
They had built a partition wall through the end of the crane gantry, which was quite odd. The end of it was just visible poking out the other side of the wall.
After a little wander we found ourselves in the former admin building, it was empty but had a few nice features like the old telephone exchange, and also housed classrooms and laboratories.
By this point we were getting peckish so popped off-site to pick up some lunch, came back and had a nice munch sat on the grass outside our next target, the boiler house.
It was almost unbearably hot and stuffy in here thanks to one side of the building being entirely made of glass panels, but it was good to see none of the stuff had been stripped out.
Whilst on our way to the next big target building we swung by the former dog section kennels. Each dog had it's own purpose-built hut inside each of the numerous pens....
...before we ducked into the firearms test-firing tunnel. The extremely thick concrete-lined tube was built into an earth bank and lined with sound-deadening material.
After those two smaller parts of the site we popped into the largest building by far, which dominates the landscape of this part of the base. Parts of it have been sectioned off now into some surprising things as we were to find out, but one half was used for the storage of armoured vehicles, personnel carriers and other heavy machinery as well as recovery training and bulk machinery stores.
Part of it had been turned into an indoor sports hall.
And another area had formed the home of the motorcycle workshop.
We then hopped over to the second biggest building handily right next door, this was a much more modern facility which formed the field workshop. It also had fully functioning gantry cranes which we may have had a little play around with. We also later found out from the security team that police dog handlers regularly train in this building and around the site
Who put that up there....
When we had finished playing with the machinery in the massive cavernous field workshop we headed back up the site to the small arms and optic instruments training building, which had a bundle of absolutely brilliant signage scattered throughout.
Just in case you were unaware, SA & MG stands for semi-automatic & machine gun...
Last stop on our marathon journey after striking out at a few inaccessible buldings was the fittings & machine shop.
This was by far the biggest single location I have ever explored, the only thing that comes close and may be bigger is the entire RAF Upper Heyford site including the airfield side. Soon enough it is all going to be bulldozed to make way for a huge regeneration project.
Loads more photos, as to be expected, on my flickr here https://www.flickr.com/photos/mookie427/sets/72157672111739205/
Fast forward a bit and I once again found myself on site, and after signing in with security off we went once more. This time our focus was the sprawling TTA side, or Technical Training Area, which trained recruits in all manner of disciplines from firearms, welding, engines and transmissions construction, machine tools and other heavy industries. This place was unbelievably massive, and after walking around it for seven hours, and walking ten miles according to my friends fancy smart watch we were exhausted.
Overall I would say we got into less than half of the bigger buildings on this side, and after leaving them the security team went round re-securing everything for us.
This will be very photo heavy as can be expected!
The first building we found was the former welding facility, recruits were trained in both arc and oxy-acetylene welding in this building.
The next building was the former electrical engineering and engine/transmissions building, but in earlier life it had a much more heavy industrial use. There was a load of random stuff dumped in here in one corner, presumably from some old exhibition or something.
They had built a partition wall through the end of the crane gantry, which was quite odd. The end of it was just visible poking out the other side of the wall.
After a little wander we found ourselves in the former admin building, it was empty but had a few nice features like the old telephone exchange, and also housed classrooms and laboratories.
By this point we were getting peckish so popped off-site to pick up some lunch, came back and had a nice munch sat on the grass outside our next target, the boiler house.
It was almost unbearably hot and stuffy in here thanks to one side of the building being entirely made of glass panels, but it was good to see none of the stuff had been stripped out.
Whilst on our way to the next big target building we swung by the former dog section kennels. Each dog had it's own purpose-built hut inside each of the numerous pens....
...before we ducked into the firearms test-firing tunnel. The extremely thick concrete-lined tube was built into an earth bank and lined with sound-deadening material.
After those two smaller parts of the site we popped into the largest building by far, which dominates the landscape of this part of the base. Parts of it have been sectioned off now into some surprising things as we were to find out, but one half was used for the storage of armoured vehicles, personnel carriers and other heavy machinery as well as recovery training and bulk machinery stores.
Part of it had been turned into an indoor sports hall.
And another area had formed the home of the motorcycle workshop.
We then hopped over to the second biggest building handily right next door, this was a much more modern facility which formed the field workshop. It also had fully functioning gantry cranes which we may have had a little play around with. We also later found out from the security team that police dog handlers regularly train in this building and around the site
Who put that up there....
When we had finished playing with the machinery in the massive cavernous field workshop we headed back up the site to the small arms and optic instruments training building, which had a bundle of absolutely brilliant signage scattered throughout.
Just in case you were unaware, SA & MG stands for semi-automatic & machine gun...
Last stop on our marathon journey after striking out at a few inaccessible buldings was the fittings & machine shop.
This was by far the biggest single location I have ever explored, the only thing that comes close and may be bigger is the entire RAF Upper Heyford site including the airfield side. Soon enough it is all going to be bulldozed to make way for a huge regeneration project.
Loads more photos, as to be expected, on my flickr here https://www.flickr.com/photos/mookie427/sets/72157672111739205/
