Corsham Quarries

By early December there was intense interest in the Corsham Quarries from all quarters and to safeguard its interest the Admiralty peremptorily requisitioned Monk s Park on Monday, 2 December. Five days later the MOS requisitioned all the remaining quarries, much to the surprise of the Bath Portland Board. TTie following Monday Mark Pictor wrote to inform the company land agent that ... 

Regional War Rooms, 246 Reith, Lord, 155 Requisitioning, Corsham quarries, 154... 

THE CORSHAM QUARRIES BEFORE THE COMING OF THE ROYAL ENGINEERS... 

In October, 1939, the Admiralty negotiated leases on two other small Corsham quarries at Brocklease and Pickwick, together with Bethel quarry at Bradford-on-A von. The workforce of the Bath and Portland Stone Company, which owned virtually all the quarries in North Wiltshire, was then concentrated on stone extraction from the firm s remaining quarries at Limpley Stoke and from the west side of Spring Quarry, a 3,000,000 square foot area of workings containing some sixty miles of underground roadways below land between Corsham and Box. 

Having traced the history of the two smaller factory sites throughout the Cold War era, we can now examine the role of the Corsham Quarries in those unstable times. Most of the underground RSGs were completed by 1962, and at their hean was RAF Rudloe Manor (situated in the now redundant Rotor operations centre in Brown s Quarry) which... 

Unlike the three other quarries that comprised the Corsham CAD, Ridge was never reclassified as permanent storage, and no further devel-... 

As an interim measure the War Office was approached with the request that some of the quarry space under development at Corsham should be temporarily allocated to the RAF until the new Army weapons programme got properly under way. The outcome was that in November, 1936, the RAF was granted the exclusive use of Ridge Quarry, which was then approaching completion. Some time later a substantial part of Eastlays Quarry was also seconded to the RAF to supplement the Ridge holding. 

The main heading in Brown s Quarry extends for some distance to the north beyond the area occupied by the RAF, and it was suggested that this should be further extended by several hundred yards to a point beneath the surface camp at Rudloe Manor, where a lift shaft would be sunk. Although a little exploratory work was started the scheme was soon abandoned because its cost was calculated to far outweigh the operational benefit. Access to Brown s Quarry is via an electric lift. There is a story (probably apocryphal) that this was requisitioned from Harrods in Knightsbridge when it was found that a new one could not be acquired from the manufacturer at short notice. Unlike all the other surface structures at Corsham, the lift-head building for Brown s Quarry was built... 

A plan put forward by the Bristol Aircraft Company to move into Monk s Park Quarry, a disused stone mine about eighty feet below ground at Corsham at an estimated cost of 1,000,000. 

The demand for gas at the factory for heat treatment and other processes was beyond the existing capacity of the Bath gasworks. To meet this demand a bulk supply was obtained from Bristol gasworks, delivered via a new 12" compression main laid between Bristol and Bath and a duplicate 18 main laid from Bath to Corsham. In total some twenty miles of gas main were laid to supply the Spring Quarry complex. 

Monk s Park Quarry had remained disused since development there was halted in 1941. After the war the Bath Portland Company hoped to recommence quarrying, but the Admiralty s renewed interest in the Corsham area in the early 1950s rather upset this plan. The catalyst for this renewed interest was the decision to close the sprawling and hopelessly inefficient naval storage depot at Risley, established on the site of the former ordnance factory at the end of the war. 

The 720,000 square foot Westwood Quarry lies fifteen miles west of Corsham below a precipitous hillside overlooking the incongruous, industrial hamlet of AvonclifF in the Avon Valley. It is the remotest of all the quarries requisitioned under the Corsham scheme, and, once the initial panic to go underground subsided, was the first earmarked for abandonment. 

Harpur Hill RAF reserve depot, 38, 39,43, 45,47, 103 Evacuation of, 44 Structural faults, 40 Harris, Captain, 123 Harrogate, evacuation of Air Ministry to, 244 Hartham Park Quarry, 181, 207-208,211-212 Hartlebury storage depot, 212 Hasley and Avening quarries (Gloucestershire), 15 Haughton, Major, 194 Hawker Tempest, 204 Hawker 5ea Fmo" 204 Hawker Typhoon, 204 Hawthorn (Corsham), 2... 

Phillips Master trainer, 150, 230 Piccadilly tube tunnel, 232, 234 Pickwick Quarry, 45, 207 Admiralty lease of, 151 Pickwick Road, Corsham, 196 Piaor, Alan, 16, 17, 18, 154 Pillboxes, 121-123 Pioneer Corps, 121,131 PlesseyLtd, 148 Pockeredge House, 68 Poison canon, 206 Portal, Lord, 173 Post-war rearmament, 135 Power-egg, 171-172 Power-jets Ltd, 225 Pre-stressed concrete, 86 Priory Street, Corsham, 196 Property Services Agency (PSA), 141,144... 

---