Cuffley Heavy Anti-aircraft Battery. 05/2008.

Hi all,
First of all thanks to Bishop for this one.
Only had a couple of hours and it took a while to find it.
This place is very overgrown and there is lots of random stuff laying around, looks like Pikeys or a farmer have used some of the buildings.

Sorry it's very pic heavy!

One of the outer emplacements, completely overgrown.


One of the outer emplacements with a convertion.


Big building near outer emplacement.






Lots of stuff inside and smelt very strongly of s**t.


Ceiling, wall and metal beams.


Building next to a big gun emplacement area.




Buildings inside of emplacement, four in this one.


Building at the centre of the emplacements with road circling it.














Metal hole on the floor in the middle of an emplacement area, presumably for a gun.


There are quite a few small random buildings around the middle of the site, most of them are very overgrown.


This looks like the original door.


Metal tank.


Nissan hut.










And a few random pics.




Pikey/Farmers wiring.


Cement sandbags.




























































I did not have time to go inside the centre building but i will go back again soon, overall an enjoyable couple of nice peaceful hours in a chilled out place.

If someone could just go and strim it for me!!!

Again thanks to Bishop.

Looks like a good place.

I'm just doing some research into pill boxes.

Nice find, thanks for the pic's

Ah fine work Sneaker, you've done well mate. I hope you don't mind if I add a bit of info on HAA sites.

Construction of the specially designed reinforced concrete emplacements
to hold 3.7 inch and 4.5 inch guns began in 1938. These followed a number
of standard patterns which developed throughout the war, but generally
they were octagonal or square, about 40 feet across and comprised an open
concreted enclosure with shoulder-high external walls. Around the inside there
were ammunition alcoves where the shells would be stored on wooden racking.
In the centre, the steel framework of the hold-fast, for anchoring the gun,
was embedded in the concrete of the base. The emplacements were grouped
in fours and eights, half batteries or full batteries.

Click to expand...

Pic below shows a AA gun in a concrete emplacement, note the crew bringing ammo from the lockers around the inside of the emplacement. Initially the crews of these sites had no protection from attack, it was quite common for one of the ammo magazines in a emplacement to be used as a crew quarters and shelter.

The command post housed instruments such as the spotter’s telescope, a height and range finder, and a predictor. The predictor combined information on the distance, course and speed of the enemy, to calculate where to train the guns and what fuse-setting to use for the shells. This information was automatically relayed to the gunlayers in each emplacement so all the guns were trained on the target.

Click to expand...

Height/range finder.



Predictor. An amazingly complex bit of kit for it's day, I can't remember the exact figure but there's something daft like 10,000 parts to one of these.



Most HAA sites would have two large magazines for the storage of ammunition. Snap below is from one of my local HAA sites.




Couple of pics of heavy anti aircraft sites firing, now that's what you call muzzle flash.





A lot of women served on these sites, in fact I recall reading about one HAA in the London area that was completely crewed by female personnel.



Wiki link on the 3.7 inch gun, the most common type at a HAA (though the 4.5 inch gun could also fit the emplacements).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QF_3.75_inch_AA

B

The guns allocated to London for the blitz were about 30% 3.7" mobile guns, 30% 3.7" static guns and 40% 4.5" guns with a handful of 3" guns thrown in for variety!

This changed towards the latter end of the war with a massive re-allocation of 3.7" guns from other HAAs around the country drafted to london to protect against V-rockets, most of which were 3.7" static guns, and the 4.5" guns were replaced with a newly developed 3.7" gun and a small number of 5.25" guns.

Information overkill? Possibly

Oh, and the official designation of the battery was:

W3 - Burnt Farm

Local Live link showing the Cuffley HAA (Birds eye view is worth a look). Interesting layout for a HAA, it looks to me as though there were six gun emplacements? To my eyes it looks to be a bit of an odd set up.

http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&FORM=LMLTCP&cp=51.702387~-0.090584&style=h&lvl=18&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&scene=7700228&phx=0&phy=0&phscl=1&encType=1

B

Cheers Bishop, the information is excellent as i don't know too much about them to be honest.

Hey no problem Sneaker, info on HAA sites isn't the easiest to find. I'd like to say a big thank you for checking this place out.

B

krela said:

The guns allocated to London for the blitz were about 30% 3.7" mobile guns, 30% 3.7" static guns and 40% 4.5" guns with a handful of 3" guns thrown in for variety!

This changed towards the latter end of the war with a massive re-allocation of 3.7" guns from other HAAs around the country drafted to london to protect against V-rockets, most of which were 3.7" static guns, and the 4.5" guns were replaced with a newly developed 3.7" gun and a small number of 5.25" guns.

Information overkill? Possibly

Oh, and the official designation of the battery was:

W3 - Burnt Farm

Click to expand...

Cheers Krela, i have just found this great information on the place.

http://www.hertfordshire.com/pages/news/show-news.asp?id=183

That is a fascinating site, Sneaker. There's so much to see there and lots of extra things to learn as I knew next to nothing about these sites. Love the brickwork in the nissen hut and that funky door handle on the metal door. Those cement sandbags are amazing.

Cheers Foxylady, the 1970's tv series Timeslip was also filmed there though i am not sure if i remember it!.