Saltersgate Ammunition Depot. July 2008.

Visited this site with BigLoada. Saltersgate Ammunition Depot lies in deepest darkest County Durham. It was built in 1939 for the Ministry of Supply. It was used to store ammunition from the Aycliffe Royal Ordnance factory. The ammunition arrived at the site by train at Burnhill junction. It was then transferred around the site via a narrow guage railway within the depot.
Very little is written about this place, just snippets here and there but no great detail. I have had my eye on this site for many months now and have carried out many "reccys" to get a feel for the place.
Once we were within the perimeter of this site we felt very "uneasy" to say the least! We don't know why but we do know it is very active with many of these buildings being put to other uses. We just don't know what!
On the day we visited we saw evidence that the buildings are being Patrolled by large 4X4 vehicles - lorries. We only had time to take a few photos before we left.
On with the pics. Apologies for the quality - the uneasy feeling made us panic!

Remains of perimeter fence.


A bunker "adapted" for other use. Part of blast shield removed for this.






A bonus! Look what we found abandoned nearby! It seemed to still have "armour" around where the cab was.


Finally. I found this nearby in the forest. It looked about the right age but is it connected to the site? It easily came apart for storage via clips and looks like a " pull up frame" but is too low. Any ideas??


Thank you for looking.

Now that truck is sweet!

It was an amazing place but very freaky. Like that film deliverance, I just knew some inbred with a 12 bore was gonna come outta those trees...

God knows what they are storing in those bunkers but the locks on them are new and huge.

My only two photos:





Was a brilll day out except for all the rain and fog!

That truck is class

Wow, how cool is that truck! Excellent site altogether...shame about the bad feeling. Good work though, chaps.

BigLoada said:

Was a brilll day out except for all the rain and fog!

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At the same time it looks like it's the sort of place that would be all the better for a bit of mist or a overcast day. I actually prefer to visit places in bad weather than on a sunny day!

Reaperman said:

At the same time it looks like it's the sort of place that would be all the better for a bit of mist or a overcast day. I actually prefer to visit places in bad weather than on a sunny day!

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I know what you mean mate, xcept the rain was torrential! Plus the fog added to my serious panic whilst there.

Nice find & good pics guys! Pity you didn't have as much time as you needed-knowing you two you'll be going back soon!? The truck is a real bonus too!

BigLoada said:

I know what you mean mate, xcept the rain was torrential! Plus the fog added to my serious panic whilst there.

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I think the panic set in on the way in through the forest. The trees were so close together that it was almost pitch black. We also made out dog barks nearby, big dogs at that! - there is no housing etc for miles. Visions of wild, stray rottys came to mind! Added to that the completely lost feeling (trees are all the same!) and the "we really shouldn't be here" thoughts made for a panic style explore.
There are lots of these bunkers at this site with only a few being hidden within the trees. This one was the easiest to reach.
I may go back but with full cammo and survival set up. It would be the only way to remain hidden.

Love that truck, that looks great. And like the buildings you saw. Is there anything left of the rest of the site, and roughly how big is it? Looks very interesting.

Cheers, good pics too.

Sal

smileysal said:

Love that truck, that looks great. And like the buildings you saw. Is there anything left of the rest of the site, and roughly how big is it? Looks very interesting.

Cheers, good pics too.

Sal

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There is lots and lots left but the site is lived in. It's remoteness and hiddenness (is there such a word?!) makes it a real unknown to us. Here's a flash link to the bunker we visited but try scrolling out from it and see for yourself!
http://www.flashearth.com/?lat=54.785978&lon=-1.889004&z=19.4&r=0&src=msa

Look to the north and west. In the middle of the site you will see a farm with massive scrapyard. Not cars but machinery, lorries, busses and historic stuff. We don't know the owners and are finding it difficult to research them.

Dr Black and myself visited the site a few months ago. I'd been fascinated by it for years, after going past it many times on my bike. The Waskerley Way bike route goes pretty close by.
The old truck is, I believe, the remains of a Daimler bus, I'm sure the doc will correct me on that, 'cos he did the research on the number plate.

The bunkers are rented out by the guy who owns the land, who 'inherited' them from the MOD when they left them, then apparently denied all knowledge of them, so he broke in and claimed them for his own. So now they're basically just big garages.
The story goes that they were full of old guns and ammunition, which the lucky new land-owner then distributed to all his farmer type mates!

They're now used for storing vintage vehicles, which make the odd appearance at, well, vintage vehicle rallies. We found an old flyer lying around which confirmed this.

One of my mates is helping out a guy up there with some restoration work on some old buses stored in one of the bunkers.

Some other info from my mate is that the bunker he's using for the bus restoration, has a load of German graffiti inside it...which got my conspiracy theory mind working....that it could have been some kind of POW camp.

If you Google Saltersgate/Burnshill, a lot of the hits come back mentioning POW camp, rather than ammo dump....hmm, which may also have been why the MOD denied all knowledge of the place....or maybe I've just got an overactive imagination.
A lot of the hits also come back mentioning Dogging...but that's a whole different story...just be careful where you park... *ahem*.

ODDITY - thanks for that info mate. It confirms what I suspected. I had heard somewhere that these bunkers housed old vehicles. At the time I thought they contained those old green fire engines that come out during fire brigade strikes.

I would give anything to have a look at what is really inside here. Unfortunately due to my arrest a while back I am now very nervous and this place had the atmosphere of that film "Deliverance". Scrap cars, woodland...I just imagined some greasy bearded inbred uncle mother truck driving freak to rape us with his boom stick.

About dogging: the woods are full of Durex packets and we saw lots of odd people parked in cars but unfortunately no action.

As for the POW camp theory...I believe that. Look at an OS map of the area and nearby you will see several plantations, called: Tank Woods. Prisoner Woods, Victory Plantation etc. Now why would they be called such names??

It's also quite strange how big the compound is. The fenced off area...with those big concrete fence posts, goes way beyond the site of the bunkers.

There's a load of pine trees that run alongside the bike route and they're also surrounded by that fence. If you look from the track towards the farmhouse type building (from google earth it's in an open field, looks like it's surrounded by bits of JCB's and dumper trucks) where the old station used to be, there's what looks like some kind of look-out tower, which would probably have been at the side of where the railway lines were. It's not very high, but it just looks a bit out of place.

I think you might be able to see it in the pics on Sub-brit.

Mmmm it all makes sense. That tower really does look out of place - I had even pointed it out to BigLoada. The dogging had came into my mind but I had simply dismissed it! It was so obvious I didn't register it!
As we left there was a posh Rangerover parked up and it looked "dodgy" with an old couple in. Maybe next time eh BigLoada? Late at night of course.

This site is officially Burnhill ASD (Ammunition Storage Depot) built by the Ministry of Supply during WW2 to hold the output of Royal Ordnance Factories until it could be issued to the appropriate Armed Force for use.

I hope this is of some use.

Bob J

Oh, and the truck...

It's actually (or was) a Daimler double decker bus, originally in service in Glasgow from 1938.

The only thing I don't understand is that it has a second or passenger seat on the nearside wheel arch - something missing from other Daimler COG6 models (from what I've seen on Google Images anyway - I'm no bus expert/enthusiast). Have a look for it's reg on this page: -

http://www.nebpt.co.uk/index.asp?page=6

Cheers Doc! But what I dont understand about that truck is is why there is planks of wood in place of a windscreen??
This place really has got me intrigued. I need to get back but at the same time it has me seriously freaked out!

Okey-dokey.

The planking does not sit in the place of a windscreen, but rather it forms tha back of the drivier's cab. The photo below is taken just forward of the wooden planking and shows the driver's pedals and handbrake. For whatever reason, the steering column is missing : -

http://s285.photobucket.com/albums/ll57/DrBlack_photo/?action=view&current=Truck1.jpg

Next up is my own favourite shot of the truck/bus hybrid: -

http://i285.photobucket.com/albums/ll57/DrBlack_photo/1938_Daimler.jpg

Judging by your photos guys, you got spooked pretty early on in and only found the one bunker. The bunker you hit was the first point in the 'V' formation. If you ever go back there, head off in a 45 degree angle (either way) with your backs to the main bunker entrance - you'll soon find the rest of the bunkers.

Sadly, you missed this little lot : -

http://s285.photobucket.com/albums/ll57/DrBlack_photo/?action=view&current=Truckthing1.jpg

No idea what it is, but on a 'B' reg it's err.. 1985 or something, so not that old. There weren't any door locks on this little thing, but time had taken it's toll and the driver's door handle had seized. Oddity said to me "What we need is some sort of lubrican..." (this isn't a 'dogging' reference, by the way) - as luck would have it, a discarded aeorsol at my feet was actually some sort of 'almost-empty' WD40 cheapy rip-off. A quick squirt and we had the door open.

Dr.Black

Aha Dr Black. I had already seen that second pic on Flickr! I still think full cammo for me and I'll do the whole site . I knew of all the other bunkers and had my full bearings in my head but I honestly thought BigLoada was just gona run away out of fear! Probably in completely the wrong direction at that!
This site will wait till later in the year for us now as we have more pressing stuff planned.