Path through WWI ammo depot, Bramley, Hampshire

[Moonraker]

Yesterday I was browsing through the latest Ordnance Survey maps in Waterstone's (and groaning at the ever-increasing expansion of towns and villages), when I noticed that on the latest Pathfinder map of the Basingstoke area a right-of-way is still shown through the former MoD depot at Bramley, 1.1 miles south of Bramley station and running from 652572 to 671577. Three years ago I was intrigued by this and approached it from the west, to find no trace of the beginning of the path. I hiked around the perimeter of the depot and tried the eastern approach, only to come across a sign warning that a right-of-way was wrongly shown on some maps and that it had been closed in 1926!

The path was temporarily closed during the Great War when Bramley ammunition depot was established. In May 1922 Government lawyers advised that unless more than fifty cases for permanent closure of rights-of-way through sensitive War Office areas were processed by the end of August all the closed highways on them would automatically reopen; officials then hastily drafted a bill that would allow them to remain closed if applications had been filed with the Railway and Canal Commission. (See National Archives file WO/32/2662.) Porton Down, Wiltshire, was one locality affected, as was that close to Tyneham in Dorset.

It's strange that the normally accurate Ordnance Survey has persisted with this error for so long, and with at least one nationwide exercise (in the early 1970s, I think) to establish exactly which paths and tracks actually were rights-of-way.

Edited 25 October , 2005 by Moonraker

[Rob B]

Hi Moonraker,

I know that the ammo depot at Bramley produced some interesting finds a couple of years ago in the form of chlorine gas in the bottom of a number of ammunition bunkers that had been grown over and neglected.

I also beleive a civilian contractor was contracted to clear the area and they didn't last long before discovering some things that could hazard life!

Perhaps no bad thing the path is still closed off.

Rob

[Guest]

The Central Ammunition Depot, Bramley, did not close 80 years ago. It was still in use for its original purpose until the late 1970s. I know this because I worked there from 1967 to 1972, when I moved on to work at a similar depot in a different part of the country.

The original WWI buildings remained in use throughout. These were surface level storehouses, not "bunkers". I find it difficult to imagine that anything was left behind in any of them, because when they were empty they were empty and it was easy to see the whole floor area.

As I was involved in the inspection and maintenance of the stock, I can say that the only stock items there at that time of WWI vintage were:

1. A very small stock of .455" Webley pistol ammunition.

2. Some 13 pr cartridge cases retained for saluting purposes for the RHA, but fitted with modern primers and gunpowder charges.

[Moonraker]

I emailed the Ordnance Survey about the path still being shown; they referred me to Hampshire County Council who replied:

"The path through the MOD land at Bramley was closed by an order made in the 1920s. The order provided that the path would be re-dedicated when the land was no longer required for defence purposes.

However, the path is nonetheless shown on the definitive map (1964). The definitive statement acknowledges that the path is closed, and we can only assume that the path was put on the map in order that the promise to re-dedicate was not forgotten. However, it is misleading, and we think that although well-intentioned, the decision to show the path was erroneous.

It will be added to a list of anomalies that we will be addressing in the near future."

Ironically the ammo dump is now closed and though I don't know what is intended for the site I suppose the path could be re-opened. The Reading- Basingstoke railway line passes through the middle and there's a railway station at one end, so I wouldn't wonder if someone isn't thinking "housing", thus bringing nearer the nightmare first warned about thirty-five years ago of "Readingstoke" - a merger of the two towns. I vaguely recall a fuss a few years back when the ceilings of the MoD houses were an inch or two too low for them to be sold off to the general public.

[Simon Jones]

Some Livens gas projectiles were discovered at Bramley in about 1988. These could have dated from the 1940s rather than WW1.

Simon

[Rob B]

Simon,

Thanks for mentioning that, I went on radio silence when angie was so definative there hadn't been any thing of the sort. My contact was a member of the game shoot at Bramley on the training area and they remember the case of the gas leaking and it would have been in the late 80's.

Rob

[Simon Jones]

Rob

You're welcome. I assume that if the Livens drums were full they would have contained phosgene or mustard gas and could well have been buried.

Simon

[Terry_Reeves]

Livens bombs were found buried at Bramley, along with some chemical shell. The depot was used by the US armed forces from 1978 until its closure. When the depot was decommissioned a site survey was carried out,as is normal, and the muntions were discovered. An extensive clearance operation was carried out by the Royal Engineers, the RAOC and other agencies.

Terry Reeves

[Guest]

All I can say is first that there were definitely no bunkers, only surface storehouses, and second if there was anything buried it was not part of the stock, was not in a proper storehouse and was long forgotten.

Mind you, the storehouses were several hundred yards apart and the perimeter wire was something like 11 miles round and most of the land was either farmed or woods (at another depot where I worked, steers and sheep wandered freely round inside the fence).

It was never an "ammo dump". It was a Central Ammunition Depot, a principal ammunition storage facility, and from the time it was built until the late 1930s the only one of its kind for land service ammunition in the UK.

Regarding the proximity of the railway line, if you ever want to find ammunition depots, you don't need to search the whole country, just the land adjacent to railway lines.

[Rob B]

Angie,

Having seen properly run ammunition storage facilities like Warminster, Sennelager and Otterburn I know there would not be a chance of something like that ever happening.

Its the adjacent training areas that are the potential problem. I remember as a child living in a Barracks in Maidstone and discovering a number of buried items near a dry training area, one of them I had taken home slung over my shoulder (I was 7) my father was a serving Royal Engineer with a bit of experience in these matters and the item, an unexploded Rocket Launcher was taken away and destroyed. I don't know how much PE 4 was used but it rattled the windows.

Rob

[Guest]

If there was anything ever buried at Bramley of Great War vintage, I would say it was very likely to have been soon after the war when they were clearing out the stocks from the active theatres and sending them back.

During my time at Bramley, the British army pulled out of Aden and most of the contents of the Aden ammunition depot were sent to Bramley. A box of ammunition should never leave an RAOC (read Logistics Corps) depot without seals showing where it had last been opened and, except where they are factory seals, the reference number of the responsible individual, location and date stencilled on the back of the box. But it was soon established that any box with Aden seals needed to be checked and many boxes were not sealed at all.

It became quite clear that at the end the personnel in Aden had just thrown anything in any box to get rid of it, including various weapons and ammunition of Soviet origin, passed on by the Egyptians and captured from the rebels. There was also quite a lot of stuff which qualified as antique, but which had never been disposed of.

So, procedures can break down under the right (wrong!) circumstances.

In my time, the procedures for checking returned ammunition (which would also include returns from places like Warminster) were extremely rigorous and the pressure was not to get the job done fast, but to get it done right. Anything dodgy was set aside for disposal as appropriate, including destruction at the depot's own demolition and burning ground.

However, I would not be prepared to guarantee that the same standards applied in the immediate aftermath of the war, when there were huge quantities to clear from a large number of theatres, depots, dumps and units. I can just imagine some officer or NCO, with one eye on his imminent discharge back to civilian life, arranging for a couple of strong lads with shovels to help him with a little job down in the woods, rather than sort out the problem.

[Nigel Marshall]

Hi,

Dragging this back to the top. I went on exercise twice at Bramley. Once in 1989/90 in the infantry/sf role and once in 1993 with vehicles. I know that on the second time there we were very limited as to where we could put the wagons due to 'unmarked holes' and on both occasions we were warned that shovel reccies should only be made to the 'blind side' of embankments, presumably as these were above natural ground level and we weren't likely to dig up something that shouldn't really have been there and was likely to kill us.

Then the whole area was closed to the public.

Cheers,

Nigel

[Gardeb]

Hello all.

Bramley is still used as an MOD training ground as well as for some TV programs like some other MOD sites are today.

Whenever I go there I am conscious that munitions may still be there waiting to be found.

Gareth

[madtaffy]

Hi All

knew a few of the RAOC guys that were sent up there to deal with some of the finds, most of the gas shells were from WW1, and most of it was found in pits dug at the side of the bunkers

Ian

[Anorak]

hi their is a book out called the secret railway  in the woods a history of the military railway at the central ammunition depot bramley by christoher hegg and laurance  bindley oen publishing 2023 hope this is of intest

[fellop]

1 hour ago, Anorak said:

hi their is a book out called the secret railway  in the woods a history of the military railway at the central ammunition depot bramley by christoher hegg and laurance  bindley oen publishing 2023 hope this is of intest

An interesting subject. Bramley however was not the only ‘Depot’ to have and operate a railway within its boundaries. I was never posted to Bramley [good for me] but I did have two separate postings to COD Bicester in Oxfordshire both to 16 Battalion but working within D and E Sites which overlapped 17 Battalion at Craven Hill, Royal Pioneer Corps. Bicester had a huge internal railway system connected to the main line railway. The Depot was built during 1941 and each ‘Shed’ [building] was to be rail served and Bicester Military Railway came into being.

COD Donnington [15 Battalion] in Shropshire, my last posting also contained a railway within it's boundaries but certainly nothing on the scale of Bicester. Donnington however was acre for acre smaller than Bicester anyway.

Many if not almost all Ordnance Depots had a railway system I think.

 

Regards

Peter