Porthcawl WW2 shooting range

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canteen now bricked up for safety


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bullet fragments found on the big dune, the amount of metal fragments and bullets in this dune is overwhelming you only have to dig your hand into the soft sand to find all sorts from 303 to bullets from larger guns...



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old dug out, love a metal detector as the bottom of this trench is probably
full of intresting shells even today!

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the huge dune in the distance is what would stop the bullets from over shooting, the inresting buildings are at the bottom of this hill, dug into the ground to protect them from the obvious danger. a system of pullies would hoist up targets a few feet above the shelter to be fired at by boys who would soon be leaving for Dunkirk and the Normandy beaches.....



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my father looking along the underground trench that would have held all the targets and mechanical hoist machines. next to where the pic is taken is a canteen and abolutions house (bog!) now bricked up by the local council.

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stare into the darkness of the toilet block, now blocked off to the public, went there a few years ago, nothing special about ither the canteen or the toilet block as expected, so we wernt missing anything!
still an intresting area spanning about 5 square miles of dug outs and trenches. according to local sources when the military left in 1950 a huge dune was collapsed over the amo dump covering up years of amunition and boxed shells! need a metal detector, love to find a lee enfield or a strap of rounds!!

update, visited again today and took the kids and a spade with me see the pics of hundreds of bullets found!

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my son and i spend some time polishing these up and some of them came up like new, even after over 60 years! wife probably kill me when she sees these on the cabinate on her arrival home from work!

ps, Wales won the grand slam!!!! and i went out hunting for ww2 crap, what a fab weekend!
pointless giving a google ref for this site nothing can be seen from the air at all, however to get to it go to Newton bay and walk along the coast left, head for a big dune in the middle (can't miss it) then the range is at the bottom, there are actualy 2 identical ranges both in the same state of repair and both facinating, look for the dug outs which are long man made dunes with corrigated iorn at the top. they run in sets of 3 leading up to the site, as a child i remember roads and buildings leading to the range, as of today site very accesable as long as you dont mind the 1 mile hike, quite easy. its common land and as such can be accessed legally.

Nice find! I didn't know that was there, and I've lived near Bridgend some 14 years now.

Were the buildings accessible or are they bricked up?

Indefatigable said:

Nice find! I didn't know that was there, and I've lived near Bridgend some 14 years now.

Were the buildings accessible or are they bricked up?

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buildings are accesable but take a stick! last year bridgend council bricked up the buildings incase of collapse and put a rail over the top of the big target trench to stop people like myself from falling in! (20 foot drop!) nice place to walk and take the dog but if you had a metal detector you would find thousands of bullets in the sand! thanks for the post

King Al said:

Looks pritty cool, shame about the toilet block, I love a good derelict toilet

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thanks for your post

ww2nut said:

...love to find a lee enfield or a strap of rounds!!

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What a find that would be, eh!
Another interesting WW2 report and pics.

Cheers

how would i go about visiting this site? i often walk the dog at newton and porthcawl.

many thanks

looks really interesting.


Frequent visitor to the area - will definitely try and have a look round next time.

was there walking the dog this afternoon - cxould i find anything?! nah!! lol
just a concreted area where obviously a buildig once stood, a few bricks which could have been a wall underground (they were in the side of a dune) and what looked like a chimney sticking out from the ground

where abouts are the buildings etc??

PaulSXi said:

was there walking the dog this afternoon - cxould i find anything?! nah!! lol
just a concreted area where obviously a buildig once stood, a few bricks which could have been a wall underground (they were in the side of a dune) and what looked like a chimney sticking out from the ground

where abouts are the buildings etc??

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head towards the big dune, look towards ogmore by sea then look in to the dunes you will see it, or walk up the beach until you are about halfway to ogmore then turn left on to the dunes keep walking towards happy valley on the hill and you will fall right into it!

Woah, loads a bullets!
Probably best to not leave them near the fire or radiators!

Sounds like a pretty big site. Is it still owned by MOD or Local Council?

Lb:jimlad:

I remember visiting this a good few years ago now.

I don't know if it's true, but it was rumoured that Eisenhower visited the site!

http://www.islandfarm.fsnet.co.uk/Island_Farm_Camp.htm

Would be really useful if someone could add a Google pin to the location as I've tried to find it but struggled

Jclawl said:

Would be really useful if someone could add a Google pin to the location as I've tried to find it but struggled

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Greetings, You managed to find a thread from 2008 and asked for a pin on Google maps??? dude have you ever heard of Ordnance Survey maps which the British Military used to find places. I looked on my OS maps and found the place right away. Try Wheres the path you can place OS maps and Google side by side.

Jclawl said:

Would be really useful if someone could add a Google pin to the location as I've tried to find it but struggled

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Have u typed in "Porthcawl WW2 shooting range" in google?
this is considerably less typing than you did here & straight away tells you where it is

Jclawl said:

Would be really useful if someone could add a Google pin to the location as I've tried to find it but struggled

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This is a definite no, no! Adding pins to posts will be the death of these places. I'm sick of seeing these beautiful places trashed so quickly due to the over exposure on the likes of Facebook and other urbex sites where the location has ro be named. It's disgraceful how urbex has become lately. Wish it could go back to the good old days