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Report - - RNAD Broughton Moor, ex Royal Navy ammo store - March 09 | Military Sites | 28DaysLater.co.uk

Report - RNAD Broughton Moor, ex Royal Navy ammo store - March 09

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horrgakx

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
Been meaning to do this for ages and we (me & sworks) thought it should be done before the grass and weeds start growing back for summer. Glad we did really, it was a nightmare of gorse and brambles even now with most train tracks being impassable. Must be infinitely worse when it all grows back.

The whole site is owned by the local council now and is up for redevelopment. It was plain that any investor has a LOT of clearing up and with the potential unmapped mine sites, ton upon ton of asbestos and the scale of the whole thing, the cost of cleanup will run into millions of £'s.

Anyway, the pics. The site is HUGE. No way can you visit everything on the same day and I quickly realised that having looked through previous posts from here you get unique shots every time it is visited.

Panoramic from the top of the spoil heap. There were numerous mines on this site and apparently some remain un-charted. The 3 buldings towards the right-centre were laboratories, obviously a dangerous place because uniquely they were covered on ALL sides by earth banks.
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A guage showing quantity of fuel oil, possibly for the many train engines that serviced the site.
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A repeater bell used for the external telephones.
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Peeling paint and lichen on a window frame.
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They don't make 'em like they used to.
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Storage limits painted onto a wall.
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What I'd guess as a light munitions store. Differs from the heavy stuff as it isn't reinforced as well. The doors on the buildings have been removed but they were obviously VERY high security judging by very solid steel & concrete door frames having holes for cross-bracing.
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Evidence of the miles and miles of narrow guage railway that criss-crossed the site.
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Electrical gear on the outside of a small railway engine house.
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Don't know what happened here, but it seems to be the only one in this state.
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I loved the simplicity in this;
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A large electrical switch
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Coat hooks
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Many of the buildings were surprisingly beautiful AND INTACT! Honestly, some of these buildings were in amazingly good condition and still extremely solid.

A sign which has been shot with .22 air rifle pellets. I know of people that have been shot at in the local area with an air rifle!!!
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Loving the bokeh;
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And again;
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An intrinsically safe exterior light fitting.
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Exhausts for the 3 boilers that heated a group of buildings.
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Outside...
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Exterior panoramic of a light munitions store. The train tracks would split off and run inside the entrance there.
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All pictures hosted by Flickr
Most of this report is above but the full set of pictures is HERE....>
 
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G

Gordon WR

Guest
Guest
Ace pictures there, and you're not joking when you said it was huge !! Over 400 buildings covering 1200 acres, now that what I call a BIG site !!
 

Derelict-UK

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
Good report, you say the council owns the whole site now, does that mean the farmer no longer uses the site? When I was there he had a few buildings next to the old spoil heap with fresh hay and council wheelie bins, are these all gone?

I know I did a long report on this but as you say the place is huge and before I was caught there were a few places I did not see so wouldn't mind going back if there are no more chances of bumping into anyone.
 
G

General Tosser

Guest
Guest
Not sure if the Council do own it as yet.
Last I heard it was still in process of being transfered from the MOD (that was a while back) and has been in that process for over 10 years.
It's likely that not much will happen with the place, the asbestos clear up problem is on a massive scale. I think the reality is that it would cost more to clear the site than it is worth.
 

horrgakx

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
I'm certain that it IS owned by the council now, they're looking for developers. A great whacking sign says so :)

We didn't see any people or any farm animals at all. I spotted a deer before it disappeared into the gorse*. There was evidence of fairly recent human activity, but maybe weeks or more old. There was some hay in some buildings but again it looked old.

I was trying to keep my eyes and ears open for movement, I saw recent vehicle tracks (a tyre mark on some grass which trailed mud over the road but hadn't been washed away by rain) which is probably the newest evidence I saw.



*I'd expect the presence of wildlife will have a very large impact on the re-development of the site. There's a large PDF document on t'Internet which outlines a study of all this sort of stuff but like all official documents they're insomnia cure material.
 
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General Tosser

Guest
Guest
I'm certain that it IS owned by the council now, they're looking for developers. A great whacking sign says so :)

Ah splendid, I suppose its only taken 15 years or so to get that bit sorted.
As I understand it the contract to deal with asbestos is in the tens of millions.
Really it should just be left as it is. Its going to cost far more to tidy up than it wil ever be worth.
 

horrgakx

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
Really it should just be left as it is. Its going to cost far more to tidy up than it wil ever be worth.

Yeh I know where you're coming from, but to leave it in an "unsafe" condition will still mean upkeep of the security fencing (which is poor now!) and thats a constant drain on the council.
 

Ordnance

Stay Safe
Staff member
Moderator
Increasingly the government are forcing councils to develop 'Brown Field' sites instead of cleaner, cheaper 'Green Field' sites (previously un-developed) as evidenced at many former ROF's and Military Depots.

The cost is largely met by central government for former government land.

At the moment such land is worthless, but give it a few years for the economy to pick up again and it will be worth developing again.

Millions was spent to clear the former 'Yorkshire Chemicals' site in Leeds for more high rise offices & apartments. yet at the moment you cannot give office space away in Leeds! But things will change sooner than you think......

A bonus for UBEX as many recent locations will remain un-developed for longer.
 

Brick_Man

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
yes its defo council/regen group owned. so no two blokes in a MOD landy patrolling it daily.
Just the farmer, who TBH is the best security a site could ask for. But TBH its condition won't really detoriate till the demo crews move in, which as above, will be a while yet, its simply not worth it at the mo.

Its a huge site alright, I'm more interested in the mining relics, but they are few and far between, and in a month they'll be 6ft under the worst brambles known to man :(
 

horrgakx

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
Does anyone on here know someone who worked here? I'm hearing all sorts of stories about munitions being dumped in deep shafts etc. but I suppose unless we hear from a reliable source then it can be taken with a pinch of salt.
 
G

General Tosser

Guest
Guest
Does anyone on here know someone who worked here? I'm hearing all sorts of stories about munitions being dumped in deep shafts etc. but I suppose unless we hear from a reliable source then it can be taken with a pinch of salt.

Didn't happen.
All of the shafts on site are long since capped and all are pretty shallow anyway.
 

Dempsey

The Human Turbine.
28DL Full Member
Its brown field as stated, but a site of such scale is going to take years to decontaminate, there is ordnance under the place all over, as you can expect.

The mine has being plotted overground (the one which is uncharted) and there is a lot of Vent shafts, along with the shaft which you walk down (mental blank can't remember official name) which is intact. Its deep aswell, if i remember correctly 300 metres!

To be honest im not that interested in the munitions dump, but its a tranquil place non the less!
 

horrgakx

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
Thought as much, doing that would be pretty irresponsible.
Did you have any involvement?
 
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