Cuffley Heavy Anti-aircraft Battery. 05/2008.

Derelict Places

Help Support Derelict Places:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

sneaker

Well-known member
Joined
May 22, 2007
Messages
70
Reaction score
0
Location
South Herts
Hi all,
First of all thanks to Bishop for this one.
Only had a couple of hours and it took a while to find it.
This place is very overgrown and there is lots of random stuff laying around, looks like Pikeys or a farmer have used some of the buildings.

Sorry it's very pic heavy!

One of the outer emplacements, completely overgrown.
veryovergrownemplacement.jpg


One of the outer emplacements with a convertion.
Outerbuildingconversion.jpg


Big building near outer emplacement.
bigbunker1.jpg


cornerofbunker.jpg


bunkerdoorway.jpg


Lots of stuff inside and smelt very strongly of s**t.
insidebigbunker.jpg


Ceiling, wall and metal beams.
metalbeamsandwindows.jpg


Building next to a big gun emplacement area.
innerbunker1-1.jpg


blastwalls.jpg


Buildings inside of emplacement, four in this one.
bunkerinemplacement.jpg


Building at the centre of the emplacements with road circling it.
centerbuilding.jpg


ringroad1.jpg


mainbuilding.jpg


pathtoinnerbuilding.jpg


middlebuilding.jpg


mainbuilding1.jpg


gunemplacement.jpg


Metal hole on the floor in the middle of an emplacement area, presumably for a gun.
gunpivotring.jpg


There are quite a few small random buildings around the middle of the site, most of them are very overgrown.
smallouterbuilding.jpg


This looks like the original door.
metaldoorfull.jpg


Metal tank.
watertank.jpg


Nissan hut.
outerhut.jpg


hutend.jpg


hangerinside1.jpg


hangerout.jpg


brickeduphutdoor.jpg


And a few random pics.
window.jpg


solidbunkerwalls.jpg


Pikey/Farmers wiring.
Pikeywiring.jpg


Cement sandbags.
sandbagcement.jpg


bigarea.jpg


bigbunker.jpg


bunker.jpg


Blastwall.jpg


brickbunker.jpg


bunkers3.jpg


facewindow.jpg


deepsetbunker.jpg


emplacement.jpg


door.jpg


gatehinge.jpg


hole.jpg


insidebunker1.jpg


outerstorage.jpg


overgrownbunkers.jpg


randomjunk1.jpg


wellovergrown.jpg


wall.jpg


bunkers2.jpg


bunkers.jpg


centerbuilding1.jpg


fullofstuff.jpg


insidebunker.jpg


metaldoor.jpg


Outerbuildings1.jpg


ontopofbunker.jpg


ringroad.jpg


Outerbuildingbunker.jpg


fencepost1.jpg


I did not have time to go inside the centre building but i will go back again soon, overall an enjoyable couple of nice peaceful hours in a chilled out place. :mrgreen:

If someone could just go and strim it for me!!!

Again thanks to Bishop. ;)
 
Ah fine work Sneaker, you've done well mate. I hope you don't mind if I add a bit of info on HAA sites.

Construction of the specially designed reinforced concrete emplacements
to hold 3.7 inch and 4.5 inch guns began in 1938. These followed a number
of standard patterns which developed throughout the war, but generally
they were octagonal or square, about 40 feet across and comprised an open
concreted enclosure with shoulder-high external walls. Around the inside there
were ammunition alcoves where the shells would be stored on wooden racking.
In the centre, the steel framework of the hold-fast, for anchoring the gun,
was embedded in the concrete of the base. The emplacements were grouped
in fours and eights, half batteries or full batteries.

Pic below shows a AA gun in a concrete emplacement, note the crew bringing ammo from the lockers around the inside of the emplacement. Initially the crews of these sites had no protection from attack, it was quite common for one of the ammo magazines in a emplacement to be used as a crew quarters and shelter.

H_000820.jpg


gunnery2.jpg


The command post housed instruments such as the spotter’s telescope, a height and range finder, and a predictor. The predictor combined information on the distance, course and speed of the enemy, to calculate where to train the guns and what fuse-setting to use for the shells. This information was automatically relayed to the gunlayers in each emplacement so all the guns were trained on the target.

Height/range finder.

gallery2.jpg


Predictor. An amazingly complex bit of kit for it's day, I can't remember the exact figure but there's something daft like 10,000 parts to one of these.

gallery1.jpg


Most HAA sites would have two large magazines for the storage of ammunition. Snap below is from one of my local HAA sites.

HAAPortsSheep049.jpg



Couple of pics of heavy anti aircraft sites firing, now that's what you call muzzle flash.

huggett2.jpg


anti_aircraft_gun_scapa_flow.jpg


A lot of women served on these sites, in fact I recall reading about one HAA in the London area that was completely crewed by female personnel.

rwg04833jpgATS.jpg


Wiki link on the 3.7 inch gun, the most common type at a HAA (though the 4.5 inch gun could also fit the emplacements).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QF_3.75_inch_AA

B ;)
 
The guns allocated to London for the blitz were about 30% 3.7" mobile guns, 30% 3.7" static guns and 40% 4.5" guns with a handful of 3" guns thrown in for variety!

This changed towards the latter end of the war with a massive re-allocation of 3.7" guns from other HAAs around the country drafted to london to protect against V-rockets, most of which were 3.7" static guns, and the 4.5" guns were replaced with a newly developed 3.7" gun and a small number of 5.25" guns.

Information overkill? Possibly :)

Oh, and the official designation of the battery was:

W3 - Burnt Farm
 
Last edited:
Cheers Bishop, the information is excellent as i don't know too much about them to be honest. :)
 
Hey no problem Sneaker, info on HAA sites isn't the easiest to find. I'd like to say a big thank you for checking this place out.

B :mrgreen:
 
The guns allocated to London for the blitz were about 30% 3.7" mobile guns, 30% 3.7" static guns and 40% 4.5" guns with a handful of 3" guns thrown in for variety!

This changed towards the latter end of the war with a massive re-allocation of 3.7" guns from other HAAs around the country drafted to london to protect against V-rockets, most of which were 3.7" static guns, and the 4.5" guns were replaced with a newly developed 3.7" gun and a small number of 5.25" guns.

Information overkill? Possibly :)

Oh, and the official designation of the battery was:

W3 - Burnt Farm

Cheers Krela, i have just found this great information on the place. :mrgreen:

http://www.hertfordshire.com/pages/news/show-news.asp?id=183
 
That is a fascinating site, Sneaker. There's so much to see there and lots of extra things to learn as I knew next to nothing about these sites. Love the brickwork in the nissen hut and that funky door handle on the metal door. Those cement sandbags are amazing. :)
 
Cheers Foxylady, the 1970's tv series Timeslip was also filmed there though i am not sure if i remember it!. :)
 
Back
Top