25 MU Hartlebury

[ColinA]

Some years back we leased the testing range at Hartlebury for a shooting club.
When we took over the site we cleared the Butts of hundreds of 20mm shells.
The original firing shed was still there with a base for mounting 303 & 20mm guns.
Unfortunatly some time later the brickworks took over the site & demolished everything.
All gone, only memories.

[Snoopy]

I did business with several firms of the old 25MU for many years. I'm no expert, but there were/are a great variety of types of buildings on the site, some of which certainly look like they were intended for munitions storage. They have huge concrete blast-walls with only a narrow slit along the top edge to allow light in. These contrast with the hangar-like general storage buildings.
A relative of mine, Johnny Crayton, used to work there in RAF days and he told me that there used to be a Mosquito on gate-guard duties, but orders came through to destroy it, which the staff reluctantly did, with an earth-mover, and burnt the remains. As with many old aerodromes, there were stories about stuff buried. Many of these are apocryphal, but Johnny was very specific, as I was very sceptical... He related that it used to cause just as much aggro to have too many items as too few, especially expensive things like engines. In this case Merlins.... However, even if it's true, they will be corroded junk by now, there isn't any point in losing sleep over it....!

[Carnaby]

Hartlebury and other Universal Equipment Depots came under the auspices of 40 Group. All ammunition and explosive (and fuel) requirements and storage was the domain of 42 Group. Hence the UEDs would not store explosives and the like, though they did sometimes handle empty containers for the latter.

Hartlebury was, along with Carlisle, one of the first UEDs to be built (1937), and covered 350 acres and cost £1M to construct.

It had an HQ site, plus six subsites, each with 3-5 enormous storage sheds.These sheds were of three types - non-protected, wall protected, and fully protected. The building mentioned above is a fully protected shed. The size of Hartlebury was initially 1.25 million sq ft, later increased to 1.5M. Rail access was provided to some sub-sites with a total capacity of 100 trucks.

The UEDs were later renamed Universal Equipment Wings, then Aircraft Equipment Depots. The latter may have been to distinguish them from the other principal depots under 40 Group - the Barrack and Clothing Stores. An expression often quoted for the UEDs was that, 'they stored everything from aircraft engines to split-pins'.

[andymacg]

Would the buildings here which are being used as a trading estate

http://wtp2.appspot.com/wheresthepat...z=18&oz=8&gt=1

be associated with RAF Hartlebury?

[Carnaby]

Very unlikely - site plan WA6/78/54 shows all sites to be east of the village of Hartlebury.

[andymacg]

Thanks for that wasnt sure But I ve found what they were used for as I ve found a picture of them in the 2oth century defences in britain west midlands area book, they were used by the US forces as a jerrycan filling depot

[worcester aviation]

That is Sandy lane industrial estate,Stourport,near a wartime fuel depot is still in use by Callow fuels
At NGR SO82266 70017,is the afore mentioned underground tanks

[ColinA]

Hartlebury certainly would have had some ammunition storage.
There was a machine gun testing range which was used for 303 & 20mm cannons.
We used this range for some years ubtil the brickwarks extended theit clay extraction and destroyed them.
When we first cleared the sand we removed large quantities of 20mm shells!

http://wtp2.appspot.com/wheresthepat...z=16&oz=8&gt=1

This is the area where the butts were.

[deefer]

I'm a newby to this site( stumbled in looking for railway stuff??) but I worked on security at Hartlebury for about a month a few years ago. As a rule of thumb when looking at Google earth or similar any pale coloured roofs are modern buildings and dark ones are original RAF buildings. Cant go through the whole site it would take too long but I'll happily answer any questions if I know the answer. The history has been pretty much covered but many of the original buildings and features stand.

[Snoopy]

A great uncle of mine used to deliver fuel pre-war. It was brought up the Severn on River tankers and stored at that Sandy Lane site. Petrol, Parrafin - all sorts. Later, I think for the war, there was a national network of pipelines built to distribute petrol around the UK for the war. Stourport was a hub. I can't recall what it was called, but the site is still fenced-off and I think still has a marked heli-pad.