Cranage

[tigger]

3309.40

(also just uploaded a couple more photos of two of the shelters)

[tigger]

twelve months since my last post about Cranage and sas to say that every attempt to organise a suitable time to visit the Betchton decoy control has failed.

However, a recent visit to take Newage to look at the BHQ yielded some internals:

PABX room



Main ops room


The exterior of the BHQ is being damaged more by the local gun club - embeded .308 rounds


Further photos in the photobucket album referenced in my earlier reply

[tigger]

This is the W/T section building some distance away from the airfield site. Finally got permission to photograph it today. Looks to be a fairly standard 4561/40 design though at some point one of the interior partition walls has been modified and the double door has been enlarged.







The large opening at the end of here is not original


Most of the doors are either in place (or close to where they should be!)

[No2SoAN]

Afternoon all.

The drawing number for the 'control tower' at Cranage is listed on the Site Plan as 6A/473.41. It was a Permanent Brick building, as opposed to a single brick temporary building, but as yet I have found neither a drawing nor a photograph of one of these buildings. From talking to some people who were stationed there and to some of the locals it is thought to have been a single storey building, rather than the usual two storey or more, and no one remembers there being a viewing platform on the roof either.

If anyone can help me with this it would be much appreciated.

Cheers

Craig

[PETERTHEEATER]

One has to consider that some Temporary Brick buildings were two bricks thick.

[netcompsys]

found heritage document

http://www.middlewich.org.uk/Middlew...nelPHOTOv3.pdf

kevin

[Caffeine8]

Good evening all. It's been a while, but I've been a bit tied up with work and a re-design of www.rafcranage.org.uk

I received a call yesterday from Eon, who own most of the former camp part of the site, to let me know they've uncovered an underground room. The room has been underwater (high water levels in that area), on and off, most likely since the airfield was closed in 1957 and it was like this when they opened the entrance cover. They've pumped it out to find it full of hydraulic equipment, thought to have been installed to help with the drainage of excess water from the camp area.

I've sent an e-mail off to Adams Hydraulics Ltd to see if this was one of their pumps, and to see if they can tell me more.

I've attached a couple of photos that Eon let me have, hopefully I'll be popping along for a visit and to take some more photos in the next week or two.

Cheers

Craig

Sample01.jpg

Sample02.jpg

Sample03.jpg

Sample04.jpg

Sample05.jpg

[REF]

Brilliant Craig, really interesting find. Is there anything of the structure that remains on the surface?

[No2SoAN]

Unfortunately not. E-on discovered the structure while laying a new drain in the area of the pump room, the compressor house that ran it is long gone. The room has been capped now, with concrete over the manhole cover, and a record of the room along with measurements and a copy of the info I received back from Adams Hydraulics has been sent to English Heritage.

The pumps turned out to be part of the sewage system for the camp shifting 500 litres a minute, that's a fair bit of the brown smelly stuff lol. Adams still have the delivery and installation records dating from 1940.


On a slightly more interesting note I'll be posting some images later on the Cranage web site of a couple of items found by E-on staff. They include -

A deep blue poison bottle, hexagonal in shape with three side of ridged surface for the blind and the word poison and the ministry arrow on the front faces.

Two Brylcreem bottles, one with rather nice 'deco' mouldings on the sides.

A Manchester company Furniture Cream bottle, the name is on the bottle, but it escapes me at the moment.

A Paul Jones of Louisville, Kentucky rye whiskey bottle, the label is in a bad way after 50 years but I've got friends in the U.S. looking into it for me, one can remember drinking the same whiskey when he was at Cranage in '56/'57

A dessert spoon from 1942 with a date stamp, the ministry arrow and made in Birmingham by a silversmiths, again the name is there , but it escapes me at the moment.

Finally a rather stunning lighter from New York that has a working roulette wheel on the side. There's a little button that sets the ball bearing whizzing round. It has an inscription on the back face relating to Cranage. Originally given as a thank you gift to a civilian plumber who worked on the camp it was lost not long after. It was found again in 2007 and by luck, the plumbers son was working as a contractor for E-on on the site and it was returned to the family. I'm hoping to get in contact with them to get some more photos of it.

On an even more interesting note... I hope, I was contacted yesterday by an ex-National Serviceman who was based at Cranage and he's looking for a home for his collection of items, they include 700 negatives of the camp, mainly of personnel, along with a register of names, a copy of a 16mm movie film of Cranage which has been transferred to DVD and his own personal copy of the programme from the final film ever shown at the Astra cinema on the camp that he ran. I'm driving over to see him in the next week or two to pick all these up, hopefully the negs and the film will be in good enough condition to upload to the Cranage site.

Cheers

Craig

p.s. I must find out if I can consolidate my user names, both Caffeine8 and No2SoAN are myself.

[Another Number]

You should send a copy of the report to ARG too.

Hope to see some of the pics on here too.