Report - Llanberis Bomb Store : May 2016

[North Wales Yorkie]

This site is close to home, I always meant to find an accomplice and visit with some decent lighting but kept delaying, after all it was just down the road. Then the council sealed it and I was gutted that I'd missed my chance. Earlier this week I heard that one of the metal doors had been left unlocked so four of us paid a visit.

An original stencilled warning which has unfortunately been spoiled by idiots with no sense of history. This is in the bay by the railway line where presumably staff would be engaged in loading/unloading bombs from trains.

Lots of graffiti, some creative, mostly the usual rubbish.

 

[anubis]

Love the graffiti, reminds me of record sleeves some of it

 

[mw0sec]

There is yet another brave scheme in the offing for the place - this time, some sort of hydro-electric gubbins. The Council are doing a "three wise monkeys" act when challenged about possible residual ordnance in the surrounding (and rather large) area.

 

[BrainL]

Nice pics them mate! I like it

 

[Bolts]

'oooh you dont wanna go thru here' made me laugh, it's different to the usual crap you get

 

[Lenston]

Good to see it open once again

 

[The Lone Ranger]

Nicely captured, still have to pay this a visit myself.

 

[Ordnance]

Its not really a major problem! - Just tackle the 'residual ordnance' as they did in London when building the Olympic Village and other developments.

 

[Paradox]

Nice pics there

 

[North Wales Yorkie]

Thanks everyone for your appreciative comments. We paid another visit yesterday, confined to a careful search for WW2 graffiti in the ground floor area adjoining the railway track. We spotted a better example of the stencilled warning which we didn't spot on our first visit, luckily it's almost untouched by modern graffiti. I imagine the pencil comment beneath it dates from wartime.

Then lots of pencil graffiti which we had overlooked on our first visit because of the low light and the modern scrawlings.

This reads "Duw cariad yw" and its English translation "God is love".

Lots of calculations...

Pounds, shillings and pence subtraction.

This was the most interesting find.

Out of the frame is a calculation "1800 divided by 5 on the left then "360 boxes", below which is a rhyme in Welsh which translates as:

'Over the bridge came Morris Griffydd,
Having being busy with the bombs,
Down he fell between the railway trucks
Any excuse to avoid hard work and toil'

English translation of the writing above it to the right is:
'Well old friend when you die,
We'll all enjoy peace and quiet
Everyone happy, and no one complaining
When we place you in your coffin'

The first sounds to me like a spot of teasing, and from the second we can perhaps infer that the work was hard and there was lots of complaining.

 

[The Kwan]

Cool report mate and a brilliant revisit, love that old graff, cheers for sharing it!

 

[Benjy41]

Its not really a major problem! - Just tackle the 'residual ordnance' as they did in London when building the Olympic Village and other developments.

It's been "cleared" on more than one occasion.

 

[Benjy41]

Good to see it open once again

There is a constant battle here between the council or "others", who try and seal it up and the guys with the petrol angle grinders who open it up again.
There are trip hazards and drops to consider so it's a "three-torch trip" as you really cannot afford to get caught without light.

When I visited we went in through the open area where the collapse took place (Nearest the road) and you need to allow about 2 hours.

 

[mw0sec]

Its not really a major problem! - Just tackle the 'residual ordnance' as they did in London when building the Olympic Village and other developments.

As it happens, one of my retirement 'hobbies' is assisting a local ordnance disposal co. It was in this capacity which I wrote to Gwynedd council to tell them I had found something and would they like us to do a survey.
All I received was a rather snotty reply to the effect that I had been 'trespassing in a restricted area' I wrote again pointing out that the 'restricted area' was in fact just off a public footpath and expressing surprise that they were not at all interested in what I had found, or it's location!

 

[Ordnance]

It's been "cleared" on more than one occasion.

True, but at London Dockyards they were developing the area, and treating each find as live as they found them and disposing of them. There is a lot of un-exploded ordnance in the inner London area which is being found as deeper & deeper foundations are used, and UXB's never stop a development, hence my remarks.