After a messy night out with Madmax the previous night, at the other halves Birthday Party... we decided to have a easy, relaxed explore today.
The idea was to do another four ROC Posts... that didn't happen. After the first one, which was locked. We were in the process of looking for the second, when we cam across some large structures within the tree's... on closer inspection, we soon realised that we were in the middle of an old World War II Heavy Anti-Aircraft Battery.
More info here:
As part of the post war Rotor programme, the Army AA Command
commenced a programme of building 32 AAOR's designed and built to
service the new, fewer Gun Defended Areas (GDA's) of the cold war. In
1946 a scheme called Nucleus was implemented to determine which guns
sites would be used. Out of nearly 1000 heavy anti aircraft gun sites
that were in use during WW2, 210 were to be retained and re-equipped as
part of the Nucleus Scheme. By 1951 this had developed into the IGLOO
scheme.
When fears of an attack on Western Europe heightened at the outbreak of
the Korean War our air defences were considerably strengthened. The
1951 mobilisation plan for Anti Aircraft Command listed 684 sites
although it is doubtful whether all of these were built and many would
have been with mobile guns with limited preparation of the site in
advance of mobilisation.
There were two calibres of post war guns, 3.7" and 5.25". The layout of
newly built gun sites was slightly different to WW2 sites with the
emplacements (2 - 8 guns but usually 4) laid out in a shallow arc.
On the centre of each emplacement there is a gun mounting (holdfast)
and four open ended lockers on the side walls for ammunition storage.
(WW2 emplacements had six lockers) Two rooms were provided on the
outside of the emplacement, one was a small crew shelter and the other
an engine room with a motor driving a hydraulic pump for training,
elevation and the automatic ammunition loading machinery.
The outside of the battery...
Looking down onto where the gun used to be...
Plan of one of the batteries...
The mountings...
On top of one of the bunkers...
What one of the guns would look like...
Another entrance...
Inside...
Inside again...
The main entrance to the largest bunker...
We are off back very soon... with better footwear than trainers
to get further into the bunkers 
The idea was to do another four ROC Posts... that didn't happen. After the first one, which was locked. We were in the process of looking for the second, when we cam across some large structures within the tree's... on closer inspection, we soon realised that we were in the middle of an old World War II Heavy Anti-Aircraft Battery.
More info here:
As part of the post war Rotor programme, the Army AA Command
commenced a programme of building 32 AAOR's designed and built to
service the new, fewer Gun Defended Areas (GDA's) of the cold war. In
1946 a scheme called Nucleus was implemented to determine which guns
sites would be used. Out of nearly 1000 heavy anti aircraft gun sites
that were in use during WW2, 210 were to be retained and re-equipped as
part of the Nucleus Scheme. By 1951 this had developed into the IGLOO
scheme.
When fears of an attack on Western Europe heightened at the outbreak of
the Korean War our air defences were considerably strengthened. The
1951 mobilisation plan for Anti Aircraft Command listed 684 sites
although it is doubtful whether all of these were built and many would
have been with mobile guns with limited preparation of the site in
advance of mobilisation.
There were two calibres of post war guns, 3.7" and 5.25". The layout of
newly built gun sites was slightly different to WW2 sites with the
emplacements (2 - 8 guns but usually 4) laid out in a shallow arc.
On the centre of each emplacement there is a gun mounting (holdfast)
and four open ended lockers on the side walls for ammunition storage.
(WW2 emplacements had six lockers) Two rooms were provided on the
outside of the emplacement, one was a small crew shelter and the other
an engine room with a motor driving a hydraulic pump for training,
elevation and the automatic ammunition loading machinery.
The outside of the battery...
Looking down onto where the gun used to be...
Plan of one of the batteries...
The mountings...
On top of one of the bunkers...
What one of the guns would look like...
Another entrance...
Inside...
Inside again...
The main entrance to the largest bunker...
We are off back very soon... with better footwear than trainers
to get further into the bunkers
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