Monkton Farleigh Central Ammunition Depot...... Main East building

Haven't posted anything for a long time but I was on my way back from dropping a customer off when I drove past this and thought,well,it would be churlish not to at least have a look.Please excuse the crappy interior shots,my phone don't seem to like the dark very much so I had to boost it a bit(well a lot actually).

The building was constructed at an original slope shaft entrance to the old stone quarry and housed the rope haulage system used in the main east haulage way of the depot, the rest of the depot used a standard conveyor belt set up.
The rope haulage consisted of a continuous loop that was powered at the top of the slope shaft in this building.

To see the system working look at this video at around 2 mins 18 secs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_7McEtq4_0

On with photos







The tall poles visible in this and other shots apparently were used to support camouflage netting





The remains of the rope haulage motor and pulleys



The main winding pulley is on the top



looking down the building to towards the blocked slope shaft and the first of the guide posts



The guide post



electrical gizmo



Odds n' sods



Obligatory bog shot



And a dead wheelbarrow



The CAD underground area is no longer accessible as it now belongs to company specializing in secure document storage,see this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfy9nNiXH0A

Liked it OS, Thanks

There's still life in that wheelbarrow, Trigger's broom???

Nice little vids too, thanks oldscrote!

Nice little find oldscrote

I went down a few times in the mid 80's when Trowbridge College were sorting out the electrics to get the lights back on and the place was being tidied up to open as an attraction. A group of us considered doing a sponsored walk down there, reckoned we could do about 10 miles! Have to dig out the photos from that time.

gordonbrown said:

I went down a few times in the mid 80's when Trowbridge College were sorting out the electrics to get the lights back on and the place was being tidied up to open as an attraction. A group of us considered doing a sponsored walk down there, reckoned we could do about 10 miles! Have to dig out the photos from that time.

Click to expand...

Thank you for a fine reminder of the history of Monkton Farleigh. I had not seen the videos before, and will make a note of the You Tube links for myself and others to view again. I first visited the transfer sidings site in the 1980s when a forest of saplings still covered the area, and the concrete framework of the transfer platforms was still there. I also walked the length of the underground conveyor belt tunnel that took the ammunition from the transfer area to where it was again transferred for distribution to the hundreds of storage bays hewn out of the Bath stone.

Sadly, Network Rail demolished the transfer platforms ansd tried destroying the whole transfer dock, when the site was going to be used for storage of equipment for the then intended electrification of the main line through to Bristol. This has yet to happen. The conveyor belt tunnel can still be walked.

oldscrote said:

The CAD underground area is no longer accessible as it now belongs to company specializing in secure document storage,

Click to expand...

Really? It used to just be bricked up about half a mile in. One of the first explores we did...

Here's a link to how it was back when we did it, jog any memories for you?

http://www.jarrelook.co.uk/Urbex/Farleigh Down Sidings/Farleigh_Down.htm

TeeJF said:

Really? It used to just be bricked up about half a mile in. One of the first explores we did...

Here's a link to how it was back when we did it, jog any memories for you?

http://www.jarrelook.co.uk/Urbex/Farleigh Down Sidings/Farleigh_Down.htm

Click to expand...

A collection of good shots - but taken after Network Rail cleared all the saplings and destroyed the concrete framework of the transfer platforms and part of the transfer dock itself - to create an equipment storage area for the electrification, which is yet to happen.

Hayman said:

to create an equipment storage area for the electrification, which is yet to happen.

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Really I thought it was electrified down to Bristol, dam sure I see overheads when I drive under the bridge over the M4 at Bristol