Report - ROAC Barracks, Marchington, Staffordshire – August 2019

[MotionlessMike]

Royal Army Ordnance Corp Marchington, was built around 1957 and dealt with the supply and maintenance of weaponry and munitions and various other military equipment until 1993 when the corp amalgamated with the Royal Logistics Corp. It was also a Central Vehicle Depot during this time until the barracks closed in 1970, and the Territorial Army took over until finally closing the site in the early 1980s.

Marchington also housed the Army`s fleet of Green Goddesses which came under the jurisdiction of the Office Of The Deputy Prime Minister.

There are currently plans to build 80 new homes on the 9.3 hectare site.


Few snaps from here. The 6 barracks are completely stripped but I haven’t seen it reported on for ages.


The layout of the site from the air courtesy of Google Earth

Absolutely loads of work by the corpse guy

Thanks for looking.
​

 

[Calamity Jane]

Nice & natural. :

 

[Ordnance]

Royal Army Ordnance Corp Marchington, was built around 1957 and dealt with the supply and maintenance of weaponry and munitions and various other military equipment until 1993 when the corp amalgamated with the Royal Logistics Corp. It was also a Central Vehicle Depot during this time until the barracks closed in 1970, and the Territorial Army took over until finally closing the site in the early 1980s

While it is correct to say the RAOC dealt with the supply and maintenance of weaponry and munitions and various other military equipment until it merged with the RLC in 1993 -

Marchington camp (Saint Barbra's Barracks) was built to replace a earlier WW2 hutted camp to service CVD Marchington just down the road which stored and maintained B (soft-skinned) vehicles and was closed under the Mcload reorganisation in 1965 at which time part of the depot became a 'Civil Defence' reserve depot including low tech vehicles such as Bedford RL Trucks, Land Rovers and other vehicles including Bedford RLHZ Self Propelled Pump, a fire engine originally used by the Auxiliary Fire Service (AFS), which was based on the Army Bedford RL these remained under the control of the Home Office after the disbandment of the Civil Defence Corps. These were finely replaced by placing retiring county fire engines into a new reserve fleet called 'Red Godesses' and a number of speclist units as described here for the London Fire Service.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Fire_Brigade_appliances#Incident_response_unit

Most of what was CVD Marchington is now an Industrial Estate. The camp itself was closed in 1990 not 1980

 

[MotionlessMike]

An interesting read. I spent quite a bit of time in the industrial complex in 2015 when the company I worked for rented out storage space there. No surviving photos unfortunately!

 

[Ordnance]

Marchington Industrial Estate, Stubby Lane, Uttoxeter, ST14 8LP

Ariel view of what was Central Vehicle Depot (CVD) Marchington which the barracks once housed its military staff with derelict camp at top right.

 

[Mr Sam]

Amazing how little there is on site yet you got some real cool pics and always good to see some Corpse.

 

[Saltburndan1971]

The earlier depot complex was huge and covered many times the size of the later depot. Many of the foundations of the earlier buildings can still be seen along with the routes of the many railway sidings. A prison has been built on part of the old depot site.

 

[Matkylang]

Royal Army Ordnance Corp Marchington, was built around 1957 and dealt with the supply and maintenance of weaponry and munitons and various other military equipment until 1993 when the corp amalgamated with the Royal Logistics Corp.

It was also a Central Vehicle Depot during this time until the barracks closed in 1970, and the Territorial Army took over until finally closing the site in the early 1980s.

Marchington also housed the Army`s fleet of Green Goddesses which came under the jurisdiction of the Office Of The Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM).

Memories of CVD Marchington
(Memories written by members of Forces Reunited)
CVD Marchington in 1953
Written by Iain Duncan McGregor Lees
My father, Major Robert Duncan Lees, was the base commander from 1950 to 1953 when I was just two years old. We lived at the nearby Moat Farm next to a wartime telephone exchange and kept pigs, chickens, geese and goats as there was still rationing in force. There was an orchard and gooseberry bushes, victoria plums and apples. This was, naturally, after WW2 when he met my mother in Ostend Belgium whilst serving as a Captain in B.A.O.R
As a result I was born in the Hague Holland in 1948 under British law so that I would retain British citizenship. After fighting In Korea for a year, he went out to Japan on the Empire Fowey troopship, whilst my mother and I lived in Edinburg. On his return he was posted to Hilsea Barracks Portsmouth. In 1958 we all got posted to GHQ FARELF in Singapore and he later worked at 443 BAD (Base Ammunition Depot.) It took us three weeks to get to Singapore on the SS Nevasa via Gibraltar, Malta, Cyprus, Port Said, Suez canal, Red Sea, Columbo, Staraits of Malacca and finally Singapore. We we were finally housed in maried quarters in Rochester Park next to the Royal Signals barraks.
Whe we arrived the temperature was 50°C and we thought that it would be impossible to live here. Instant prickly heat and later denge fever and dysentry. we survived. On our return in 1961 in a B.O.A.C. Brittania we landed at Gatwick which was just a grass airstrip at the time. It took four days to fly back via Bombay (Mumbai) and Ankara where we had to await spare parts flown out by the RAF. A Military coup was in progress at the time.
So back to CVD Marchington and the first house on the right in Deepcut Road. I was 13 and we stayed there for two years until 1963 when my father retired and took up employment in the building industry as a manager. Pity as the Army wanted him to progress to General Staff but I think we had all had enough of war and moving from one house to another. My father passed away in 1990 aged 72 and my mother has passed away too at 96.
I look at the photographs of CVD Marchinton with some despair to see it all in such a terrible state. Moat Farm burned to the ground at some stage and a new building was built. Does anyone know anything about the underground facilities? I believe that this was classified at one stage. Sincerely, Iain Duncan McGregor Lees.