Corsham Quarries storage

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

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. 

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... 

Electric trucks at Eastlays, 109 Locomotives, main line, 68 Overhead rope haulage, 65, 82 Railways in Monkton Farleigh Quarry, 90 Tunnel Quarry, 65 Uniformity allowances, 215 United States Air Force, storage requirements at Corsham, 177 United States Army, 6833 Guardhouse Overhead Detachment, 233 United States, Neutrality Act, 111 University of Bristol, archive storage, 45... 

In June Ridge Quarry reported a vacant capacity of 15,000 tons, but 42 Group had reservations about using the Corsham depots due to the fact that they were only really suitable for bombs of 500 lb or less and that the inclined shafts limited turnover to a maximum of 400 tons per day. The limited potential of Ridge Quarry for storage over extended peacetime periods, deficient as it was in ventilation or air-conditioning equipment, had been questioned a year earlier following an inspection... 

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. 

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