Ampthill ROC - Beds/Northants

Ampthill ROC - Beds/Northants - May '08

tomtom sudjested parking in some private residential area so i was about to head off to the next when i thought sod it torch out and wander through the woods, living in the country a brisk walk through dark woods wouldnt usually bother me but some rustling scared me a bit......hedgehog!!!

anyway after a short climp to the top of a ridge i spy a large slab of concrete.....oh dear





closer inspection shows the torlift hole, properly sealed when you stand on the hatch theres no hollow sound either so filled in completly

looks like it melted!!!

closer inspection shows the torlift hole, properly sealed when you stand on the hatch theres no hollow sound either so filled in completly[/QUOTE]

Woz this in the woods at the back of the park cos if it woz then it could b the old nuclear bunker for the heads of goverment. I know it woz in operational use in the early eighties, its just that then it woz surounded by a 12 foot fence & your pics don't show nor do u mention any. so mayb not let me know if u want 2 check out in the future & ill b happy 2 show u where i mean............

nah this is on top of a slope within the park

this is the remains of an ROC post just a very small nuclear bunker barely big enough to get a car inside

are you on about something larger? im intreagued but live a good distance away just checked this out while i was picking an engine up

Mr Sam said:

nah this is on top of a slope within the park

this is the remains of an ROC post just a very small nuclear bunker barely big enough to get a car inside

are you on about something larger? im intreagued but live a good distance away just checked this out while i was picking an engine up

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yes it is larger than you said wot ill do is hopefully next week ill take a walk over there during the day & c if it's worth a trip at night......

if u go 2 virtual earth & look next 2 where u visited your notice a large unshrubed area about 20 to 30 times larger than where u were looking i think this is where the bunker used 2 b. I still havent been up there yet but will do in the next couple of days.............Ill keep u posted.................

steve - did you ever re-visit the site of the old bunker?

i've had a good scout around the old roc post hatch, but there's no sign of there having been any other bunker or fencing on the adjacent shrubland. i'd be really interested to know more about any larger bunkers in the area, as i believe that ampthill was quite important in the old roc and ukwmo network, but i've yet to discover quite why.

philbyrom said:

steve - did you ever re-visit the site of the old bunker?

i've had a good scout around the old roc post hatch, but there's no sign of there having been any other bunker or fencing on the adjacent shrubland. i'd be really interested to know more about any larger bunkers in the area, as i believe that ampthill was quite important in the old roc and ukwmo network, but i've yet to discover quite why.

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This might be the reason

Neosea said:

This might be the reason

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whats that mate?

buster said:

whats that mate?

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Here you go

if you had gone a bit further down the road you would have found this:

http://www.flashearth.com/?lat=52.086907&lon=-0.475444&z=15&r=0&src=msl
An old ww2 bomb filling factory and propsoed 1980s shallow nuclear waste dump, still loads of buildings to see but is slowly being demolished (one building was knocked down last year).

whostolemymonkey said:

An old ww2 bomb filling factory and propsoed 1980s shallow nuclear waste dump, still loads of buildings to see but is slowly being demolished (one building was knocked down last year).

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Wow, that looks like quite an extensive site. Looking on the flash earth link I can see there's also a quarry further up, NNW in direction...ish! Can't tell if it's live or abandoned, though.

Thanks guys, but none of these is what I'm looking for.

I know all about Chicksands, both its past and present uses.

I also know about Elstow Storage Depot, which is the old munitions store up the Bedford road. (Incidentally, the pits nearby are not quarries, but old clay workings for the now mostly disused Marston Vale brickworks.)

One of the maps that I have seen was large enough in scale to see that the installation I am looking for was actually at Ampthill - not just nearby. (Chicksands is ten miles away and Elstow Storage Depot five miles away.)

What I'm looking for I have seen marked on UKWMO maps as ROC post 42, but for some reason it appears to have been more prominent than other posts. (It was flagged with a different shape and appears to have been some sort of hub.) SubBrit doesn't list Ampthill as having been a 'master' post, so I'm at a bit of a loss to know what was so important about it. That's why para-steve's apparent knowledge of a nearby bunker was of such interest.

I've also found out that the top of Cooper's Hill in Ampthill, (which is where the pictured ROC post is situated,) is now designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest, (SSSI,) due to rare lychen and moss growth, which often occurs in sandy soil that has been disturbed and cleared of foliage/topsoil. I don't know whether this has anything to do with the construction, (or demolition,) of a bunker on that site, which may have disturbed the surface and created these unusual conditions. (Interestingly - to me anyway! - the only other place in Bedfordshire with similar conditions is adjacent to a military installation and may once have been part of it!)

Any information on the Cooper's Hill site, or any other installations in Ampthill, would be gratefully received.

Thanks again,

Phil

whostolemymonkey said:

if you had gone a bit further down the road you would have found this:

http://www.flashearth.com/?lat=52.086907&lon=-0.475444&z=15&r=0&src=msl
An old ww2 bomb filling factory and propsoed 1980s shallow nuclear waste dump, still loads of buildings to see but is slowly being demolished (one building was knocked down last year).

Click to expand...

I wondered what that was. Saw it from the train everyday and then tried to find it on flashearth. Looks different in person.

There are dragons teeth scattered across the east part of the park from when there was a ww2 military hospital there (and a bunker on the boundary I'm sure you've seen from the road), but there is nothing at all on Cooper's hill.

Foxylady said:

Wow, that looks like quite an extensive site. Looking on the flash earth link I can see there's also a quarry further up, NNW in direction...ish! Can't tell if it's live or abandoned, though.

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also got stewartby brickworks about a mile to the SW

http://www.flashearth.com/?lat=52.086907&lon=-0.475444&z=15&r=0&src=msl


and afew miles NE Cardington Airfield with the famous Blimp Hangers however one is used by Warner Brothers for Film Sets

http://www.flashearth.com/?lat=52.109055&lon=-0.422099&z=15.5&r=0&src=msl

mite go have a look at this some time any chance of a link to it on the maps so i can find it cheers

loz