HAA Station 21 - Puddington - 26th May 2009 1:57pm
Heavy Anti-Aircraft Battery Station 21 - Puddington
Note that this site is on Private Property, is a Scheduled Monument, is in a Conservation Area has some Asbestos Sheeting (not part of the original site I think) and is a Wildlife Sanctuary. Permission from the owners of the site is required to visit.
The site is in an overgrown wood and consists of a command/control centre and four gun emplacements, each emplacement consisting of a surrounding octagonal wall with two entrances and four ammunition bunkers, making a total of sixteen ammunition bunkers.
The site was built in 1941 and is considered to be in "good" condition.
The command and control centre is partly demolished and some of it filled in with soil, what is left looks like it consists of two rooms, one of which is partly flooded and the other is fairly full of soil.
The gun emplacements have no sign of the gun mounts, there maybe something if dug out, but there are a number of piles of debris around the site which may be the remains of the gun mounts.
The Octagonal walls (minus two opposite sides for entrances) are very much intact and in very good condition, non are in danger of falling. the walls are approximately 5 feet high, above what I took to be the normal ground height.
The ammunition bunkers are mostly (but not all) structurally sound, some still have iron doors on part of the bunkers, the shell storage areas are open and many have some of the original wooden racking.
The first picture below is NOT from this site, but is from a very similar site to show what the site layout is like.
The rest of the pictures follow, as one ammunition bunker looks much like any other I will not try and label them. Because of the trees/growth it was not possible to step back and get a decent overview shot of one emplacement let alone the whole site unfortunately, towards the end I have tried.
Note that this site is on Private Property, is a Scheduled Monument, is in a Conservation Area has some Asbestos Sheeting (not part of the original site I think) and is a Wildlife Sanctuary. Permission from the owners of the site is required to visit.
The site is in an overgrown wood and consists of a command/control centre and four gun emplacements, each emplacement consisting of a surrounding octagonal wall with two entrances and four ammunition bunkers, making a total of sixteen ammunition bunkers.
The site was built in 1941 and is considered to be in "good" condition.
The command and control centre is partly demolished and some of it filled in with soil, what is left looks like it consists of two rooms, one of which is partly flooded and the other is fairly full of soil.
The gun emplacements have no sign of the gun mounts, there maybe something if dug out, but there are a number of piles of debris around the site which may be the remains of the gun mounts.
The Octagonal walls (minus two opposite sides for entrances) are very much intact and in very good condition, non are in danger of falling. the walls are approximately 5 feet high, above what I took to be the normal ground height.
The ammunition bunkers are mostly (but not all) structurally sound, some still have iron doors on part of the bunkers, the shell storage areas are open and many have some of the original wooden racking.
The first picture below is NOT from this site, but is from a very similar site to show what the site layout is like.
The rest of the pictures follow, as one ammunition bunker looks much like any other I will not try and label them. Because of the trees/growth it was not possible to step back and get a decent overview shot of one emplacement let alone the whole site unfortunately, towards the end I have tried.
Description: Similar HAA site