Copenacre Quarry

The greater part of Spring Quarry, however, was transferred to the Admiralty which consolidated its tenure during the early post-war years. Control of the site was exercised by the nearby Royal Navy Storage Depot Copenacre which was established in Hartham Paii Quarry after the demise of the Fleet Air Arm interest there in 1945. 

To the casual observer today the most obvious feature of the mysterious and secret underground world of Corsham is the Copenacre Royal Naval Storage Depot, an incongruous group of sinister, squat, wartime bunkers and modem offices crouching beside the main A4 trunk road about a mile outside the town. In reality Copenacre, or Hartham Park as it is more properly called, is a relatively unimportant quarry with no physical links to the much larger Spring Quarry complex a short distance to the south. 

The move from Bethel Quarry in Bradford-on-Avon required an increase in floor space at Copenacre to 217,800 square feet, at an estimated additional cost of 100,000. After token opposition from the Treasury and the imposition of certain cost control conditions, work on the extension began on 21 July, 1942, and was finished by the year s end, when the quarry was officially opened as Royal Navy Storage Depot Copenacre. 

With Copenacre now in service, the far from satisfactory accommodation at Bethel was quickly run down. like the other small quarries in Bradford-on-Avon, the two-and-a-quarter-acre Bethel Quarry in Frome Road was shallow and somewhat unstable. This potential instability, together with its relatively shallow overburden, meant that it was much... 

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