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Summary

Area used for bomb storage for adjacent Greenham Common air base during the Second World War and possibly afterwards

Other Statuses and Cross-References

• Site of Special Scientific Interest (Biological): Bowdown and Chamberhouse Woods
  Contained within this SSSI

Monument Type(s):

• BOMB STORE (Second World War - 1941 AD to 1945 AD?)

Full Description

This area, east of Bowdown House, is marked as 'Bomb Stores' on secret military site plans of 1944 <1><2>, with a key numbering different types of structures (bomb stores, tail unit areas, fuzed and spare bomb stores, component stores, incendiary bomb stores, pyro store and fuzing point building). It was apparently not part of the 1980s RAF/USAF Greenham Common site <3> as it is not numbered on the 1989 plan. The brief survey of the airbase by the Royal Commission <4> marks it as 'Area F' but does not describe its origins or function. It is uncertain whether it continued in military use following the Second World War (for example in the early days of the Cold War during the 1950s); the Greenham Common website <5> includes the Bowdown Woods in a virtual tour of the airbase, noting, 'On the north side of Bury's Bank road is an area known as the 'bomb site', which was used for munitions storage during the Second World War'. The site is managed by the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust (BBOWT), and their leaflet about the natural history of the area <6> refers to the bomb site as wartime and post-war munitions area, but it is not known on what evidence this is based.

A site visit in 2004 showed that the bomb storage area contained rows of rectangular earth mounds and bays of low brick walls, but that woodland was invading what had been a cleared area for decades if not hundreds of years <7>. Some brick buildings had apparently been demolished relatively recently.

LiDAR data modelling clearly shows the earthworks: two not quite parallel strips about 100m apart contain the individual mounds for housing the bombs. There are four long banks centrally placed in a row in the shorter northern strip and four at each end of the longer southern strip. Each mound is about 19m in length, spaced about 20m from its neighbours.

Sources and further reading

Related Monuments

Associated Excavations and Fieldwork

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