Ransome & Marles Bearing Company was founded in 1916, during the first world war to manufacture ball and roller bearings. At this time most bearings had been imported from Germany, and the outbreak of war must’ve highlighted the need for another source of bearings. By 1918 the factory had reached its full output, and in 1932 the adjoining Ransome & Co engineering works, a separate business that came to form the bearing company, was acquired for further expansion. In 1969 R&M joined with two other companies to form RHP Limited, which then commanded about 40% of the British market for bearings. Then in 1990 RHP was acquired by, and remains a subsidiary of Nippon Seiko KK (NSK Ltd).
The works Hospital/Shelter is a concrete sectional structure that served the purpose of a hospital in some capacity, and doubled as an air-raid shelter. It is essentially a big air-raid shelter with several rooms and facilities for treating minor injuries, showering people down in the event of gas attacks, etc...
There’s not a whole lot of history out there about the Shelter/Hospital specifically, or when exactly it was constructed. Presumably it was constructed in the inter-war period in anticipation of another war, or shortly after it broke out. The only significant mention it gets is regarding the air-raid of 7th March 1941, when the works was bombed multiple times, leaving 41 dead and 165 injured, with many being treated in the hospital itself.
Following the war most entrances to the hospital were bricked up and it was mostly forgotten about. However within the past year or so the shelter was pumped out (you can see the water marks in the photos), and opened up to visitors for a short period to mark the 100th anniversary of the works. This is why signs are dotted around and extra lighting fitted.
The Ransome & Marles works
The Explore
Explored with: @brown747, @mineorluke & a non-member
Now this is probably the most effort we’ve ever put into an explore. It all started with talking to @Shadow and meeting up with him one night. We went over to the factory, but the area was way too busy, so we went off to return later that night. So we came back, minus shadow, and with the others being rather intoxicated by now…. That didn’t go well at all, and to cut a long story short people got shouty, ‘secca’ was insulted a fair bit, and we had to make a quick exit before the police were called.
It was clear we needed another, less obvious way of getting inside… So what did we do? ….cut a big hole in the back floor of the team van, as you do. Like something you’d probably see on a low budget version of mission impossible we parked up over the manhole, lifted it from inside the van and climbed down... hoping we didn’t have the police waiting for us when coming back out.
This is what greeted us below ground...
Thanks for looking!
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I did try and record it on my action cam but its too dark to really make anything out. I'll see if there's any pics of the hole on my phone, but its not my van so can't take any more until the weekend otherwise.
: Had this one on my radar for a long time - well done working out a way of doing it
