Army Ammo Depot - June 2011 (Pic Heavy)

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Priority 7

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St Neots, Cambs
Following the departure of the RAOC, the depot was occupied by Government departments for a further eighteen years. Some of the buildings were used as a supplies store by the Ministry of Public Buildings and Works dispatching furniture and equipment to embassies overseas. Other buildings were used by the Home Office as a transport store.
The surrounding areas of the depot were put up for auction in the 60's in several lots, none reached there reserve and instead parcels of land were sold off instead.
The upper portion of the depot and surrounding land became an Industrial Estate while the gardens and encompassed building became a housing estate. The land between the infilled canal and decommissioned branch railway is now an engineering works. Other areas form a recreation ground and more housing.
A long road trip in the company of Skeleton Key was worth it although internals were not possible as the building are either re-used or sealed tight.

On with the photos

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awesome photos there.. unlucky about the inside shots :)
 
Nice one Mr 7
Just a little to add.

Weedon had been used as a depot by the Army since the early 1800’s in a variety of roles from gunpowder store with a direct link to the nearby grand union canal.
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It also had a role in the storage and distribution of clothing, ammunition, small arms and rifles.
At one stage it also at had a section used as a Military prison.
There was also a nearby Barracks which could house 500 troops and an area known as the pavilions
Which was used as the officer’s quarters.
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Both of these have since been demolished and the land used for housing.
The Royal Army Ordnance Corps moved out in, 1965.
The surviving Depot Storehouses passed into private hands in the 1980s and
Is now being used for light industry and again for storage
. These buildings and the perimeter wall are Listed Grade II*

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When the Depot was vacated not everything was disposed in the most profesional of manners.
Huge pits were dug outside the walls and quickly filled and covered over.

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Everything from ammunition to barrel brushes,rod's,pull throughs,oil bottles and brushes litter the area disturbed by bottle collectors who have dug into these dumps leaving trenches five feet deep.
The walls of the trenches and the walk way consisting of ammo boxes of all shapes and sizes.
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EOD have been made aware of the site so they can deal with it accordingly.
Thanks for looking

SK / Neil



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Thanks bud i read somwhere there was a fire engine museum there ,but am unsure if its still on site.
I didnt see any sighns for it so possibly re located

SK / Neil
 
glad to hear you made thenm aware of what you came across very interesting looking place :)
 
Some of the early 'digs' were supposedly done by a couple of people searching for restorable BESA 15mm machine gun belts, ammo boxes etc, to aid the restoration of a British WW11 tank.

Interestingly; all the bulleted, 303 ammunition I came across some time ago was unprimered. It is very difficult to remove the Berdan Primer from live military small arms ammunition, the primer is not only a very tight press fit in the cartridge case but is then secured by having the edge of the hole straked over. This is done to prevent the primers of cartridges in the magazine, being set back by the recoil inertia of the fired rounds. Your photograph of the 303 cartridges clearly shows a bulleted case without a primer in the case head.

Proper 303 drill rounds normally have three fluted indentations in a chromed cartridge case, these being filled with red paint to further aid identification. Clearly a charger clip filled with these rounds would be instantly noticeable, as would a drill round in a rifle magazine, seen via the open bolt. In a machine gun, firing belted or linked ammunition the situation may be slightly different - the operating crew have a clear view of the cartridge case heads as they load the belts into the breech, the empty primer pockets will be right in front of their eyes. I am not saying that these unprimered cases were inert drill cartridges for machine guns, just that safety wise the case might be possible, where as a rifle magazine clearly needs something different because the primer pockets are not visible. The unprimered cases could also be armourer's setting / test gauges - I used inert rounds to set up my reloading press and check headspace on my rifles and pistols.

Personally I am not surprised by these finds, but hope the EOD get it right. A number of years ago, a scrapyard off the A19 near Whitley was buying scrap fired shells, recovered from the WW11 Northumbrian/Cumbrian Tank Ranges - all certified safe and inert by the EOD. By the expedient of a 'gas axe' the yard operatives were cutting off the copper driving bands of the shells and weighing in the reclaimed copper. All was going well until one afternoon there was one hell of an explosion and the operative died instantly - somehow a live shell had slipped through the inspection procedures!
 

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