Military
Defunct MOD Jet Engine Research Facility
This huge site lies (or should I say lay) pretty much in the middle of nowhere and once was the cutting edge of military jet engine design and testing. Building after building of strange machinery and whacky control rooms lined weed covered tracks and roads.
One highlight was the ‘thing’ sitting in stagnant water at the end of a pitch black tube. It was gargantuan, alien like…and who knows what it was.
This place was a huge playground for me and even after 3 visits I still didn’t get to cover the place fully.
I adored the retro green control room. I would have loved to install the panels as a wall covering in my home office. Sadly, I bet it is now in landfill somewhere.
Alas, now she is gone and all I have are these pictures to remind me of this incredible place
Bletchley Park-Enigma-Turing
This was a lovely place. Mixture of amazing historical artefacts hidden in peely paint lined corridors and rooms. Pretty shocking that it has been left to rot.
Bletchley Park rejoices in the fact that, until fairly recently, it was probably Britain’s best kept secret. This is because the secrecy surrounding all the activities carried on here during World War Two was of vital importance to our national security and ultimate victory. It was here that an organisation called the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) studied and devised methods to enable the Allied forces to decipher the military codes and ciphers that secured German, Japanese, and other Axis nation’s communications. The result of which was the production of vital intelligence in advance of military operations. Bletchley Park also heralded the birth of the information age with the industrialisation of the codebreaking processes enabled by machines such as the Turing/Welchman Bombe, and the world’s first electronic computer, Colossus. At the end of the War the remarkable expertise that had been developed at Bletchley Park was taken forward by a number of the wartime GC&CS staff in a new organisation known now as Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). This highly efficient intelligence-gathering machine was aided by the special relationship with America, the genesis of which came from collaboration at Bletchley Park, that burgeoned through the Cold War and continues today.
Anechoic Chamber
A silent gargantuan space to test the acoustics of jet engines.
This place was other worldly and was worth the long trek through wasteland.
Abandoned Greek NATO Radar Base
This remote base sits on top of a mountain in Kefalonia.
At the time of the visit there were contractors building a new barrier at the front, so there was no easy way in and the whole trip required stealth and tiptoe walking.
An exhausting climb up a rocky slope and through the fence at the back, all to the soundtrack of goat bells had us into the buildings full of dials, buttons and knobs.
This was a super little holiday gander.
Forbidden RAF Base
This was a nice lttle base outside Bedford. The airfield control tower had some very nice features and quite a retro 50s feel.
Some nice buttons to play with and a few dead animals thrown in.
Military Research Station
Fabulous wind tunnel facility in central England.
This place was full of light and had surprisingly large water filled cavernous spaces.
Lots of 50s style and a wonderful cyan coloured control room was the highlight.
Forgotten Naval Training Base Swimming Pool
Been meaning to get down here for a long time.
This one proved a real pain. I’ve just realised I hate sites with lots of separate buildings. You spend too much time in the open and trying to find a way in to each one. This place proved very tricky. There is active security now and everything is sealed really well. It was nigh impossible to get into anything, and this was made harder by the the thick overgrowth everywhere. I had mainly wanted the pool and so I made extra effort there and had to be creative in finding a way in. Unlike most places, once inside, every door was nailed up and so it was a real challenge to get around.
The site has a ‘sold’ board on the front and there is very active security. Saw 2 cars on the way round. The funniest moment was noisily getting into another building, waltzing through and then walking into a room with Mr Security sitting at his desk with his back to me. Managed to walk silently backwards out of the door again. How on earth he didn’t hear us? I’ve been puzzling over this since….did he have headphones on?, was he thinking ‘I cant be arsed with this, they will just go away’, or maybe he was actually a scarecrow.
“HMS Ganges was a Royal Navy Training base at Shotley, Suffolk. Ganges, in the early years was afloat in Harwich Harbour, and from 1905 until 1976 as a shore base. Life there was tough and the site included a 143 foot ships mast, which was manned during training and annually for a ceremonial mast manning with a “button boy” standing high above the parade ground. Around 150,000 boys were trained at HMS Ganges.”
Alien Listening Post
Always fun to sneak into a US military establishment. This was the best I could find on whilst on holiday in the sterile Long Island. This was quite nice though and if you probed around in the darkness, there were remnants of the old electronics. It was a fairly dicey climb up, with many of the stairs missing and having haul yourself up with your arms. Fantastic 360 view at the top though.
The site known as Camp Hero, or the Montauk Air Force Station, was originally commissioned by the U.S. Army in 1942. Camp Hero was originally a coastal defense station that was disguised as a fishing village, and its location was chosen to prevent a potential invasion of New York from the sea. Camp Hero was named after Major General Andrew Hero, Jr., who was the Army’s Commander of coastal artillery, who died in 1942. Three gun batteries were built at Camp Hero, replacing most of the other heavy guns in the Harbor Defenses of Long Island Sound, which also included Fort H. G. Wright, Fort Michie, and Fort Terry. Two batteries of two 16-inch guns each were built, Batteries 112 and 113 (officially named Battery Dunn).[5] Another battery of two 6-inch guns was also built, Battery 216. All three batteries consisted mainly of a large concrete bunker covered with earth, containing ammunition magazines and fire control equipment. The 16-inch guns were protected by large casemates, the 6-inch guns by shields.[6] In 1992, Preston Nichols and Peter Moon wrote The Montauk Project: Experiments in Time in which they alleged that secret experiments were carried out at the Camp Hero site. The book was popular with conspiracy theorists, and spawned several sequels.
RAF Training School
This one was quite worse for wear but kept me happy whilst the others bored themselves silly in a local shopping mall.
Nice peeling, nice carpets and the indoor beach volleyball court was something I hadn’t seen before.
Military Sound Mirrors
These have always appealed to my eye, and so I thought it was about time I got down there.
I read this before going, and it only made me more eager to get to them.
“It used to be possible for trespassers to gain access to the mirrors, but this is no longer physically possible. The deep lake created by gravel extraction has been extended to completely surround the mirrors, which are now on an island. The only access to the island is via a swing bridge, which is locked in the open position when not being used for guided walks.
The good news is that this should keep out vandals and undesirables!”
RAF Honiley - Another Jet Research Facility
LucasAerospace operated out of the former RAF Honiley site after the airfield was decommissioned in 1957. They departed some time around 1990.
An Internet friend of mine shared me this, his adventure, and asked me to post it for him ;o)
Plans came up at the weekend for a trip to visit an old pal of the Mrs. If I did the driving, I got to spend two hours of 'me time' out with my camera before sunset hit. I spent an hour scouring Google maps for something relatively close to where I was going to be spending the rest of the evening. I spotted this cluster in amongst some trees and thought this could be a suitable remote spot for a solo stroll (remoter places like this tend to have less unsavoury characters around).
I approached the place through the trees to discover that the place is fairly well covered with heras fencing and all windows and doors have been boarded up quite well. Perseverance paid off and I eventually found a chink in the armour.
It has all been pretty smashed up and it's quite hard to see as there isn't much light getting in. The whole time I was there there was the distant sound of shotguns which made me feel uneasy.
On the way out I thought I heard a car engine relatively close. I decided to get my drone up to get some aerial shots of the place. I went over to the front of the site and spotted Mr security looking out of his Land Rover. Somehow he had discovered I was on site (unless it was a routine patrol) He had obviously spotted my bird and was looking very annoyed. I flew it back and forwards from the site and beyond and he followed it in his car. Every time I flew back to the site this obviously made him realise I was somewhere inside. He was a pretty huge guy and obviously was too scared, or simply unfit, to come in and tackle me on his own and the next thing I saw was the flashing blue lights of the old Bill approaching at speed along the same road. At this point, I landed, packed up and melted into the trees. It felt kind of ridiculous having an emergency police call out for this old derelict place.
Some interesting old photos are on the web which are good for comparison. It would have been nice to see this just after closing.
Thames Fortress
A lovely spot in the Thames Estuary. An old gun emplacement. A climb up a rather precarious tued up ladder got us inside and then there was the nice climb up the tower.
Had to keep an eye on the tide as this gets cut off for most of the day
TUMBLEDOWN RAF BASE
Popped in here to relax on a wet Sunday afternoon.
Sadly my visit was cut short as a group of graffiti hoods spotted me and started following me in the distance. I was on my own and felt a little uncomfortable by their attention - felt like they were watching me to see if I was alone, maybe I was going be a target with all my gear. Maybe I'm just paranoid. Anyhow, I must go back as its a lovely site to wander.
It was a non-flying station which was under the control of the United States Air Force from 1981, and one of three RAF stations in Cambridgeshire used by the United States Air Forces in Europe (USAFE). Upwood, along with RAF Molesworth and RAF Alconbury are considered the "Tri-Base Area" due to their close geographic proximity, and inter-dependency.
Abandoned Military Barracks
Row after row of damp squishy barracks houses forming its own little post apocalyptic village. Most of the houses were inaccessible, and the ones we found our way into were empty and boring.
Submerged Defence Barracks
This water logged defence structure sits in the middle of a Essex Common. Very peaceful and vibrant