Report - ARP Control Centre - Northamptonshire - January 17th 2010.

[syadams]

Finally getting round to posting these pics!!

Went the the ARP Control Centre a few weeks back with a few people, Incredibly interesting place. Afraid to say that some of the photos are a little on the dark side. But i'm using just a standard digital camera in a place with pretty much no natural light...so i did the best i could really!!

ARP Control centre opened in the 1940's by Stewarts and Lloyds Steelworks. It was wide enough for an ARP (Air Raid Precautions) Ambulance to drive through it from either entrance. It was reopened in the 1950's as a civil defense head quarters, again for the steelworks.
In the 60's it was for research and development. It was abandoned in later years then gutted by fire. Pretty much all of the original fixtures and fittings were destoryed. But there is still a hell of alot of stuff to be seen in there!!

Just a tad overgrown!

Not even this was going to put us off.

Secondary entrance into it.

The ambulance turntable

You can see the rather bad fire damage on the walls.

One of a few random signs around the place.

What was once the toilets.

More signs

Random bits and pieces that i kept tripping over!

Tunnel heading out towards where the main entrance was before it was demolished.

Thats pretty much it for my photos, hope that others find them as interesting as i did!!

 

[REEF]

Good work

 

[The Ancient Mariner]

Gives the impression it was used in its later life for X-Ray non destructive testing of steel or possibly welds.

 

[LoganGSD]

Found this place last night, little hard to get in but bloody facinating, should be posting some pictures soon. Happy Exploring.

 

[Ordnance]

Used to use a bunker in Germany which had turntables at the end of covered drives. We used to park Landrovers in them and you had to push the turntable by hand to turn it round to one of five parking/loading bays and out.

In later years I have come accross one or two lorry turntables in department stores that use the same entry/exit point.

 

[syadams]

I don't know if the turntable was manual actually. I'm kind of guessing so though considering how long ago it was used.

As for finding this place in the dark, i really don't know if i could ever go there at night actually, i think it would actually be really freaky. ANd would be even more difficult to get to as well!

And yeah i think the general consensus is that it was used to test the quality of steel or some such similar use. Quite strange how there is very little history about it at that point in time though.

 

[REEF]

Gives the impression it was used in its later life for X-Ray non destructive testing of steel or possibly welds.

Thats right mate

 

[syadams]

I just have a few more pictures to add to this actually. I forgot that my sister had her camera too. So these are a few of her ones.

Little radiator...plus a massive tyre on the floor in the corner of the pic.

More general bits and pieces!

This is going on the lonely chairs thread as well.

Another view of the turntable area.

Toilets again.

i didn't realise how much of a state the walls of this tunnel were until i took this photo and changed the brightness and contrast.

That's pretty much it now!! i have loads of other random photos from here, but i whittled it down to the ones i thought were the most interesting. Enjoy!

 

[cenuij]

Me and a couple of my mates walked up to to this in 1983 (we were 13), all i remember is the nuclear sign and darkness. We turned tail and ran. Apart from ginger hair, i have not had problems from radiation. Can i blame that for ginger?

 

[Daruna]

noob question inc but is that a torch or a detector of some type being held in some of the pics?

 

[syadams]

It's an LED torch, even though it doesn't look particularly like a torch in some of the photos.

 

[diehardlove]

doubt they would have a dosemeter or geiger counter,looks like a torch

 

[diehardlove]

your post just appeared after i had commented

 

[syadams]

your post just appeared after i had commented

Lol its a normal thing on here i find. I post a reply and it comes up a few replies later. Quite bizzare really!

 

[diehardlove]

Lol its a normal thing on here i find. I post a reply and it comes up a few replies later. Quite bizzare really!

nah you are being moderated mate that normal till a member,saves all the twats and spammers