Creative Midlands Heritage

Cannock Chase - Brindley Bottom (2)
Cannock Chase - Wolseley Bridge
Cannock Chase - Brindley Bottom

Posted: 27 Jan 2012 01:22 PM PST

Not far from the "gun emplacement" site Ive located a set of several brick & render lined circular recesses in the ground. Each recess is dug into a hillside at a slightly lower level than the previous, and theres a series of drain pipes connecting them together. It appears that these recesses were either water or sewage pools, each draining into the next one down as the level increased. At the bottom of the bank there is the remains of a small building, presumably a pump house or treatment works. There appears to have been a sump at the lowest point.

A map of the area:

Brick lining of one circular recess, there appears to have been a cement render thats now perished:

Closer view of the cement render thats fallen off:

One of the drain pipes, very overgrown and well smashed:

Another drain pipe:

Im a sucker for "up the pipe" shots:

You can just make out the square outline of the building at the base of the hill:

Sitting in the lowest point of the building, or the "sump":

Two large drain pipes appear in the "sump", heres one:

And the other:

I guess this would have been quite deep once:

More exposed wall and lining:

Another drain pipe leading into one of the upper pools:

Ah.. you'll get used to these:

If you do happen to visit the area, watch out for this.. it points straight at yer plums:

Boundary marking posts, fence posts, gate posts, I dont know:

Strange contraption attached to one of the posts:

Until next time...

Cannock Chase - Wolseley Bridge

Posted: 27 Jan 2012 07:02 AM PST

Close to the Wolseley Arms pub on the A513 Stafford Road there is a stark reminder of the fear of imminent Nazi invasion which gripped the country during the Second World War. A square type 26 pillbox built of red brick and concrete sometime during 1940-1 overlooking the crossing of the A51 over the Trent at Wolseley Bridge (one of the few bridges in the country that can withstand the weight of a Panzer tank).
This strongpoint formed part of Defence grouping Western Command Stop Line No 6 which stretched from Tamworth along the Trent Valley to the east of Stoke-on-Trent and then onwards via Macclesfield and Stockport to Manchester.

Outside:

Inside:

Thanks for looking!

Cannock Chase - Brindley Bottom

Posted: 27 Jan 2012 03:51 AM PST

Morning all. I've literally hundreds of photos of points of interest around Cannock Chase. To pretend that I have some kind of organisation, I've decided (so long as its ok with the mods) to split these up into individual sites per thread.
Cannock Chase is littered with the remnants of military camps from both WW1 and WW2. Artifacts and the remains of camp buildings can be found, off the beaten track, although there's not much left of the camps thats not been demolished, resited, or just simply derelict and overgrown (one at Brocton, and one at Hednesford).

So, today's site, I'm totally bewildered as to what I've found here. I have had a ferret around on google and the only military construct that suits this arrangement is some kind of gun emplacement.
There are 4 (only 3 still intact) concrete fitting turrets each with 4 bedded bolts, each turret has a circular concrete base spanning out approximately 20 metres diameter from the turret. Each base has a shallow track running adjacent to the outline in a circular pattern, presumably to guide the castor of each cannon/gun/who knows what.
There are remains of rooms or bunkers of some sort, one for each pair of turrets. The entire site is dug into a hill. What do you folks make of this...?

I'm not big on photography or equipment etc, all the photos have been taken off a standard 5mp phone camera, some shots are a little shaky, perhaps not up to your usual standard :notworthy: but I thought I'd include them anyway.

First, a map of the area. The solid red line is the Tackeroo railway (now deconstructed), built in WW1 to serve both camps. I've got all the overlays and placemarks available for GE if anybody would like them. Brindley Heath Road is running top middle to bottom right and Marquis Drive top right. Note the proximity to the Tackeroo railway route, I'll come to the pools and pump house in a later thread:

Some evidence of water coursing, approaching from the North just before the main site, coming down the bank:

Heading South, approaching the site from the bank:

At the main site now, heres the track that runs around the circular base of each turret:

One turret hasnt survived the test of time, its in the bottom left:

Some of the exposed concrete base, and part of a building off to the left:

A random slot in one of the walls:

Closer shot of the remains of a bunker / store room / ammo store / who knows:

Each "room", one per pair of turrets, has a drain in each end:

Another close up of the top of a turret:

You can clearly see the curve of the concrete base spanning out from the turret:

And the bank to the rear (North) of this turret:

This is where two of the concrete bases meet, although its hard to tell without being there and kicking the foliage out the way, in the distance you can make out the curved wall of the next turret base:

Buried foundations:

Meeting point of the next two turret bases, theres a small wall been built where each concrete base meets the drop into the store/bunker/whatever, you can see the obvious curve: