Wiltshire's Secret Underground Bunkers, Abandoned Building & Weird History

The quarries in and around Corsham are a fascinating network of not only abandoned stone mines, but also underground wartime factories and ammunition stores, Cold War nuclear hideaways and current-day active military bunkers.

Over the last few days, two groups of urban explores have become last in a vast network of tunnels under Box in Wiltshire. Having previously been interviewed by Radio 4 and Radio Wiltshire on the topic of underground exploration, the Beeb once again contacted me to give my opinion on the dangers of exploring Box Quarry.

The former emergency relocations site for the government in the event of nuclear attack, the site has been abandoned since the 1980s since which time it has been kept as a decoy site until its declassification at the end of 2004. Burlington has had many code names since its conception in the early 50s, these include Stockwell, Subterfuge, Turnstile and more recently Site 3.

Also known as Hartham Park, it was Bath stone until 1939 when it became a temporary naval store, the stores were then transferred to Dean Hill and quarrying continued. In the 80s the quarry became a quarry museum.

This former Bath stone quarry was converted in to a sub-depot of the Central Ammunitions Depot. The site consists of two areas, the main storage area - districts 12 to 18 and connect via a drift, districts 19 and 20. Each storage district was divided up in to numbered storage bays, passage ways were fitted with conveyor to transport crates of ammunition around the mine.

Farleigh Down is a tunnel connecting the Monkton Farleigh ammunition depot with the main line railway at Ashley. The tunnel is over a mile long and straight. A conveyor belt was used to move the ammunition underground between the top of the hill and the main line. The tunnel is so shallow in some places that it can be seen from across the valley as a strip of dry uncultivated grass.

Former RAF site is unused and old building lie with doors open. Fences and gates with various hole.

Nicknamed the "737 Bunker" due to there being half a Boeing 737 next to it, it is located on the Salisbury Plain and used for weapons testing.

Now known by the name MOD Corsham and formerly JSU Corsham (Joint Service Unit) and RAF Rudloe Manor. A large military site which sits directly above the MOD's underground tunnel complex. During the Second World War the underground site made up part of a massive ammunitions depot and the world's largest underground factory. Later these tunnels became a government's emergency relocation site and various communication bunkers were also set up here.

Dapston Quarry is a small and long forgotten quarry beneath Farleigh Down.

A small stone quarry, just off of the main road through the small town of Bradford on Avon, since closing the tunnels have been put to several other uses.

CAD is spread over four separate quarries in the Corsham area, Monkton Farleigh Quarry is in part used for secure holding by Wansdyke Security. Tunnel Quarry is still used by the MOD. Ridge Quarry has been abandoned. Eastlays Quarry is a commercial site used for wine storage.

Swan Mine, also known as Kingsdown Quarry is a great, average size quarry with loads of quarryman's tools and artifacts still remaining today.

The former emergency relocations site for the government in the event of nuclear attack, the site has been abandoned since the 1980s since which time it has been kept as a decoy site until its declassification at the end of 2004. Burlington has had many code names since its conception in the early 50s, these include Stockwell, Subterfuge, Turnstile, and more recently Site 3.

One of the UK's best kept secrets, CCC is an active government bunker located at Peel Circus in Corsham, above ground the site consists of nothing more than a doorway in to a mound of earth, obscured from public view by a ring of trees and vegetation.

The Quarry Operations Centre, part of the Burlington Bunker has been designated as a Grade II listed building due to its special architectural and historic interest.

Eastlays Quarry has been used since 1988 for secure, controlled wine storage. Handling over four million cases of wine a year, Octavian has the capacity at the Eastlay cellars to store over 800,000 cases in ideal conditions, 90 feet underground, constant year round temperatures, absence of ultra violet light, no vibration and full humidity control.

A two mile long tunnel, built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel through Box Hill. Next to the eastern entrance of the tunnel you can see the remains of a branch from the main London to Bristol railway line which lead into the hillside into the Corsham Ammunitions Depot and terminated at a half-mile long underground railway station which was used during World War II.

Now disused, the Salisbury UD control bunker is a fairly small but really well built bunker, which was put in to use in 1963.

The Rocks is one of the smallest of the Bath stone quarries, it consists of just one passageway about 200 meters in length, stone from the quarry was used to build the near-by estate of the same name.