Visited this place last sunday, 2 long range coastal guns were installed here during WW2, named "jane" and "clem", they were joined later be a AA site close by.
Original plan of one of the 2 emplacements
One of the 15inch guns
one of the large magazines under construction, these were above ground mags with a simple earth covering to protect them
Each gun had 2 magazines and the shells were carried to the guns on a small rail line.
Much remains at wanstone farm, first off we visited the gourdhouse, this was a fortified biulding with loopholes at the front, there was also a gaol cell with the original bench still in tact
Next we set off towards the mags and emplacements, the mags were very big, as you would expect from such large guns
There was four of these mags, all had the same layout, between the 2 emplacements was the gun control centre
One of the gun emplacements, very heavily overgrown, the post you can see on the right was to hole camoflage netting
amongst the undergrowth we found another biulding wich we think may have been some sort of crew quarters, it was very heavily biult having walls around 3 feet thick
There were other small biuldings scattered around the site.
We also looked for an entrance to the deep shelter wich was on the site, unfortunately both entrances seem to have been demolished, however we did find what we think may be another entrance wich is not on the plans, it will involve a bit of digging to get in and we plan to return with appropriate tools, so watch this space for an update.
If you plan on visiting the site pleas knock at the farmhouse and ask permission first.
Hope you enjoyed the report, there are more pics here:
http://gs109.photobucket.com/groups/n56/GYZUKMUF4V/
Dave
Original plan of one of the 2 emplacements
One of the 15inch guns
one of the large magazines under construction, these were above ground mags with a simple earth covering to protect them
Each gun had 2 magazines and the shells were carried to the guns on a small rail line.
Much remains at wanstone farm, first off we visited the gourdhouse, this was a fortified biulding with loopholes at the front, there was also a gaol cell with the original bench still in tact
Next we set off towards the mags and emplacements, the mags were very big, as you would expect from such large guns
There was four of these mags, all had the same layout, between the 2 emplacements was the gun control centre
One of the gun emplacements, very heavily overgrown, the post you can see on the right was to hole camoflage netting
amongst the undergrowth we found another biulding wich we think may have been some sort of crew quarters, it was very heavily biult having walls around 3 feet thick
There were other small biuldings scattered around the site.
We also looked for an entrance to the deep shelter wich was on the site, unfortunately both entrances seem to have been demolished, however we did find what we think may be another entrance wich is not on the plans, it will involve a bit of digging to get in and we plan to return with appropriate tools, so watch this space for an update.
If you plan on visiting the site pleas knock at the farmhouse and ask permission first.
Hope you enjoyed the report, there are more pics here:
http://gs109.photobucket.com/groups/n56/GYZUKMUF4V/
Dave
Nice work.
