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Report - - HMS Wildfire, Gillingham - April 2018 | Underground Sites | 28DaysLater.co.uk

Report - HMS Wildfire, Gillingham - April 2018

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Jorwal

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
Wildfire has been nothing more than a wet dream for years, and I genuinely thought I'd never get (or miss) an opportunity to visit the site. As soon as I heard it was open, I grabbed the floodlight & headed straight there (forgetting my lenser, hence the bad lighting :mad:), so I'll apoligise for that now...

As you can imagine the site got resealed pretty quickly & was only open for a few days (which is a few days longer than i thought it would be), so sorry if I got your hopes up.

Here's a brief history of the place for anyone that isn't familiar with it (Source: SubBrit): The function of the unit was to provide a trained and stable staff for plotting and communications duties in the Flag Officer, Medway’s operational headquarters now entitled Local Command Head Quarters (LCHQ) in time of war.

Below is a plan of the site found on SubBrit. The emergency exit has been back-filled, and Entrance 1 was lost when the above-ground building went.
post_war_plan.gif


There was a fire in the plotting room some years back, as you can see in some of the pictures. There's also (annoyingly and unsurprisingly) a fair amount of graffiti down here dating back to 1990 and a lot of damage to old fittings and equipment. More recent additions include a ton of porno mags, human poo, used bog roll & used tampons in an old toilet (pretty grim).

Anyway, Pictures!

The other side of what I'm used to seeing and a sight I never thought I'd see - 'Entrance 2'
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A bendy spiral just down from the entrance.
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An old light fitting
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Ventilation equipment?
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The first door from the entrance tunnel
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Elsan toilet
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One of a few without any graffiti
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Fuse box
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Not a clue, any ideas?
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Mouldy table, quite a few of these still down there.
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Either a generator or a transformer.
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A lot of signs in here, and just as well because the place is pretty massive.
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Some hard nut has punched holes in one of the cupboards - I like the fact they kept the colour scheme fairly consistent all the way through.
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One of the rooms (lit up as best as I could).
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Same again.
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A phone exchange? Pretty shocking the copper wiring hasn't been nicked.
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Red arrows on the floor pointing to the nearest exit.
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Another old cabinet/desk but in better condition.
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Old food & drink packaging, best before dated 1990.
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Very old coke can
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Old magazines/yellow pages (no date on these though)
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Smashed up sink
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Waste disposal switch
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And the thing to push the food down.
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The other side of the kitchen where the storage units are.
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Again, surprised this hasn't been nicked and sold for scrap.
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Light switch with no fuse
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Storage room
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Last one of a random room
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No idea what these pink splats are.
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One of the cleaner sections of air vent, with one of the light fixtures crudely attached to it with a metal chain.
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Lots of these down there.
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The doorway leading to 'Entrance 1', a good example of the kind of graffiti down here.
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A British Gas 6v battery.
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The tunnel leading one of the entrances... Here's where I started regretting forgetting the lenser.
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And here's the backfill - it's been put in at the bottom of the stairs as it can't be seen through the hole in the wall by the emergency exit (if it is that one)
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Handy illustrations in case you can't read.
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Yes you are.
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A more up to date toilet in better condition.
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Yes, that is exactly what you think it is...
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A section of the corrugated metal missing with the ground dug out with some ventilation equipment in the hole.
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Another cool switch.
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More vents - also look at the dates on the chalk writing, maybe these are the legends who opened the doors ;)
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A back-filled vent shaft - good luck fitting down that anyway
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This was a cool room.
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The main vent shaft itself - very sturdy ladders leads to the top, I got 1/3 of the way up and turned back as I didn't trust the converse - definitely should have worn the boots.
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Buttons still press down!
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Electrical cupboard rust free and in good condition. Even had some fuses left in there.
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Jorwal

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
PART 2:

Another phone/comms exchange of some sort.
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Still not sure if this is even a real thing.
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Exactly my thoughts on all the empty rooms.
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And lit up as best as I could, the main attraction - the plotting room in all it's glory. The fire was just to the right of the shot.
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Didn't trust the floor up here for obvious reasons.
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Different tunnel walls here, looked really cool.
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Lower level.
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Not too sure if this is original or not.
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Looks like projector slide storage space.
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More fire damage on the walls.
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Projector/film spool??
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Unopened beer from another explorer - if it wasn't coors I might've been interested.
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Cool mini steps.
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A scabby old chair.
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And one last shot of the stairs on the way out.
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That's it for this one, sorry it's so long!
 

Wevsky

A Predisposed Tourist
Regular User
Mate half of your images are just to big to view even on a 27inch monitor..but it looks like you have covered the place pretty well
 

Jorwal

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
Mate half of your images are just to big to view even on a 27inch monitor..but it looks like you have covered the place pretty well
True, could’ve done with a bit of resizing to say the least
 

Kidney

Weirdy Beardy
28DL Full Member
Popped back down for one final visit Monday, bloody hell it was busy with ghost hunters and the gas mask squad. Many hadn't even got a clue what the place was! Different from what I remember from a couple of years back. Thought I'd be excited to see the place again but found it quite dull, expectations are often different from reality.

The resealing was as a result of me giving the heritage group a heads up. People were walking out with whatever they could find, including one of the Elsens!!!!! It was either going to end up on fire again or someone was going to get killed on the ladders.

Still gutted I couldn't make the shindig down there, looks like much fun was had!
 

Jorwal

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
Popped back down for one final visit Monday, bloody hell it was busy with ghost hunters and the gas mask squad. Many hadn't even got a clue what the place was! Different from what I remember from a couple of years back. Thought I'd be excited to see the place again but found it quite dull, expectations are often different from reality.

The resealing was as a result of me giving the heritage group a heads up. People were walking out with whatever they could find, including one of the Elsens!!!!! It was either going to end up on fire again or someone was going to get killed on the ladders.

Still gutted I couldn't make the shindig down there, looks like much fun was had!
Didn't see any gas maskers, wtf why would you even need one down there? :') and yeah bound to happen where the place is so open though, and it's probably for the best it being sealed - who's looking after it at the moment then, I was under the impression it was the fort Amherst volunteers
 

Kidney

Weirdy Beardy
28DL Full Member
Didn't see any gas maskers, wtf why would you even need one down there? :') and yeah bound to happen where the place is so open though, and it's probably for the best it being sealed - who's looking after it at the moment then, I was under the impression it was the fort Amherst volunteers

Saw quite a few poundland dust mask kids but one guy had a full on 1940's gimp mask on, I just started laughing at him. Topped it off when a group came down with the spector detector and a crucifix!!!! Ah the Amherst volunteers got a free meal ticket. It was the lower lines lot in conjunction with the college, they were worried it would get turned into a drug den.
 

Jorwal

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
Saw quite a few poundland dust mask kids but one guy had a full on 1940's gimp mask on, I just started laughing at him. Topped it off when a group came down with the spector detector and a crucifix!!!! Ah the Amherst volunteers got a free meal ticket. It was the lower lines lot in conjunction with the college, they were worried it would get turned into a drug den.
Nice! I'm pretty sure the old WW2 gas masks were made with asbestos, probably done him more damage wearing it than not :) And the funny thing is due to the purpose of the place nobody probably died down there anyway, never understood the whole ghost hunting crap... And that's quite a likely scenario in fairness, it is Medway & there's already a load of junkie hobos living in cats eyes just down the road.

Looking at the weld job, it would probably be easier getting in now than before (providing it hasn't been locked under the metal plate too) - a couple of months and someone will be back in there, and a few days after that a concrete block in front of the door.
 
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