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Chobham common


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IMG_20210921_181801903.thumb.jpg.5003d42641756080804856c6442504e1.jpgoIMG_20210921_181841869.thumb.jpg.ab3bdfd10aebee8c3e64938dc0193ed1.jpgThe first picture is of land mine strikers found out on the common although this was not what they had been used for ,the second picture  not that good was taken by the Germans 1942  showing the chobham tank factory in the top left corner,most of the common has been churned up with tank testing.The third pic is a follow on going west from the previous picture ,it is this picture that shows a cross road left hand side of pic,to the left of the cross road can be seen a camp comprising of 150 +nissen huts and serve buildings most of which I think from the latter part of ww1 in pre ww2 could have I believe served for VP training ,also a smoke school ,looking to add to the limited knowledge I have especially the years 1930 / 40 

IMG_20210921_181936439.thumb.jpg.f55f51f74dafb8ab244b26535c99cdac.jpg

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Just now, andy brown said:

IMG_20210921_181801903.thumb.jpg.5003d42641756080804856c6442504e1.jpgoIMG_20210921_181841869.thumb.jpg.ab3bdfd10aebee8c3e64938dc0193ed1.jpgThe first picture is of land mine strikers found out on the common although this was not what they had been used for ,the second picture  not that good was taken by the Germans 1942  showing the chobham tank factory in the top left corner,most of the common has been churned up with tank testing.The third pic is a follow on going west from the previous picture ,it is this picture that shows a cross road left hand side of pic,to the left of the cross road can be seen a camp comprising of 150 +nissen huts and serve buildings most of which I think from the latter part of ww1 in pre ww2 could have I believe served for VP training ,also a smoke school ,looking to add to the limited knowledge I have especially the years 1930 / 40 

IMG_20210921_181936439.thumb.jpg.f55f51f74dafb8ab244b26535c99cdac.jpg

Sorry last pic should be first ...trouble of trying to do it on a phone 

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13 hours ago, andy brown said:

Sorry last pic should be first ...trouble of trying to do it on a phone 

As the common had recently been upgraded to an area of outstanding beauty and had undergone a number of cosmetic improvements to give it that user friendly atmosphere where children could collect butterfly's ,moths and the like what we're land mine strikers ,303. Shell cases and corroded bits of ordinance doing out there I wondered ,Even found few  live 303 rounds which I took to Woking police station , all of which I bought to the attention of the local council who told me in no uncertain terms" The army was never out there " despite the fact that two rusting tanks had been standing out there for forty years and had vanished during the first cosmetic clean up ,so I contacted Surrey  heritage archive who they said had nothing about the common in their records .Sent pics of strikers to imperial war museum as I was unsure as to their proper identity ," don't know" Woolwich arsenal, "don't know" contacted porton down ,not obliged to give advise to public ,however a staff member later contacted me in his own time and sent me drawings of the identical strikers in situ in land mines .

Had these been used as they were intended they wouldn't exist and as they all showed signs of damage from continual hammering of the firing pin what had they been used for the answer lay in the fact they were each different colours camouflage colours on had the remains of a transfers label " constabulary directorate" which implied that they were as would be a tool to be used repeatedly which eventually led me to smoke schools ,trading camp for the use and application of smoke generation ...

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2 hours ago, andy brown said:

As the common had recently been upgraded to an area of outstanding beauty and had undergone a number of cosmetic improvements to give it that user friendly atmosphere where children could collect butterfly's ,moths and the like what we're land mine strikers ,303. Shell cases and corroded bits of ordinance doing out there I wondered ,Even found few  live 303 rounds which I took to Woking police station , all of which I bought to the attention of the local council who told me in no uncertain terms" The army was never out there " despite the fact that two rusting tanks had been standing out there for forty years and had vanished during the first cosmetic clean up ,so I contacted Surrey  heritage archive who they said had nothing about the common in their records .Sent pics of strikers to imperial war museum as I was unsure as to their proper identity ," don't know" Woolwich arsenal, "don't know" contacted porton down ,not obliged to give advise to public ,however a staff member later contacted me in his own time and sent me drawings of the identical strikers in situ in land mines .

Had these been used as they were intended they wouldn't exist and as they all showed signs of damage from continual hammering of the firing pin what had they been used for the answer lay in the fact they were each different colours camouflage colours one had the remains of a transfer label " constabulary directorate" which implied that they were as would be a tool to be used repeatedly which eventually led me to smoke schools ,trading camp for the use and application of smoke generation ...

In just using a metal detector you are limited to a minimal depth and as this place had in its time seen a great deal of tank activity mid forties onward also in the sixties it had bulldozers and scrapers out there along with the firm I believe came from stockbridge with red cabbed ql bedfords that carried lime for agricultural purposes I remember they had the chrome Perkins badge on the front grill these had a yellow  tapered spreader body as with road gritters which would spread lime over the area of the common nearest the tank factory ,using a whites 808 detector gave much better results being able to trace service lines such as water , gas and electric supply lines ,so even if a building had been demolished with no sign of its existence one can follow the shadow of its services to and from other non existing structures and get a good idea of the layout of what was once there , apart from the obvious services I came across a two inch pipe that appeared to do a circuit of the common which had at one time carried waste oil supporting the possibility of smoke generators , these I remember were greasey black boxes the size of a small fridge with flaps and apetures  around the sides as a kid I had seen them around Hendon aerodrome and hawkers factory , but this is another subject matter that fell on stoney ground when ever I mentioned it ,nobody thus far has even admitted to knowing what I was talking about when questioned..

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16 hours ago, AmmoMan said:

Tons of info in this document:

https://chobhamcommon.wordpress.com/

I fly RC planes on "Tank Hill" so am up there regularly, if you fancy an explore let me know....

Hi AmmoMan ..

Thanks for the post ,and yes I'm only down the road ,will catch up with you when covieniant....re the attachment ,yes I have seen that  quite informative ..although where I'm heading with this post isn't included in your attachment ,just a small window in time ,but all will be revealed soon.......

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2 hours ago, andy brown said:

Hi AmmoMan ..

Thanks for the post ,and yes I'm only down the road ,will catch up with you when covieniant....re the attachment ,yes I have seen that  quite informative ..although where I'm heading with this post isn't included in your attachment ,just a small window in time ,but all will be revealed soon.......

IMG_20210922_170527092.thumb.jpg.d6e3a3a0e104a18f5f4ac2ce210e50e1.jpgIMG_20210922_170442169.thumb.jpg.dc669691d27f6921b6e10ec3046a3ac8.jpg

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2 hours ago, andy brown said:

IMG_20210922_170527092.thumb.jpg.d6e3a3a0e104a18f5f4ac2ce210e50e1.jpgIMG_20210922_170442169.thumb.jpg.dc669691d27f6921b6e10ec3046a3ac8.jpg

This little booklet dropped through every letter box in the UK mid 1938 ,it's appearance caused many to feel isolated and somehow left to their own devices ,much confusion followed until the forming of the local defense volunteers ,what occured in this and later years is well documented so although the period is related there is no reason for me to go there ,save to say it was after the formation of the LDV  that chobham common became home to many of these volunteers whilst they trained in a wide range of defense pursuits .

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17 hours ago, andy brown said:

This little booklet dropped through every letter box in the UK mid 1938 ,it's appearance caused many to feel isolated and somehow left to their own devices ,much confusion followed until the forming of the local defense volunteers ,what occured in this and later years is well documented so although the period is related there is no reason for me to go there ,save to say it was after the formation of the LDV  that chobham common became home to many of these volunteers whilst they trained in a wide range of defense pursuits .

As far as any local authority's were concerned apart from the tank factory which by the way does'nt appear on any ordanance survey maps  just shows marsh land ,nothing military ever happened out on the common yet here was a vast camp part on the common and part on sunningdale golf course this was definitely 14/18 stock and probable used between the wars  for basic training etc; not until mid 30s did it appear to have a new lease of life ,it was the pioneer corps who were at the time involved in regenerating places such as this also involved in use of smoke generators . Going back to the pic of the land mine strikers you will notice that they have hammer marks ,dents and rounded edges these were called exploders by the pioneer lads , once the generator had been filled with a mixture of waste oil ,diesel and water a flare cartridge was inserted into the tube on the side of the generator then the exploder played into the tube the operative then struck the brass firing pin which in turn activated the flare so igniting the mixture ,the resulting smoke output could be controlled with various flaps built into the sides of the generator. When you think of the volunteers from all walks of life who were likely to be trained in the use of the generator there were many no doubt had never hammered a nail into a piece of wood so the likelihood of hitting that firing pin within three attempts was highly unlikely hence the dents . 

As there was a severe shortage of anti aircraft guns and personnel to man them smoke generators were a quick solution to be able to afford some protection to factories and important insulations ..

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1 minute ago, andy brown said:

As far as any local authority's were concerned apart from the tank factory which by the way does'nt appear on any ordanance survey maps  just shows marsh land ,nothing military ever happened out on the common yet here was a vast camp part on the common and part on sunningdale golf course this was definitely 14/18 stock and probable used between the wars  for basic training etc; not until mid 30s did it appear to have a new lease of life ,it was the pioneer corps who were at the time involved in regenerating places such as this also involved in use of smoke generators . Going back to the pic of the land mine strikers you will notice that they have hammer marks ,dents and rounded edges these were called exploders by the pioneer lads , once the generator had been filled with a mixture of waste oil ,diesel and water a flare cartridge was inserted into the tube on the side of the generator then the exploder played into the tube the operative then struck the brass firing pin which in turn activated the flare so igniting the mixture ,the resulting smoke output could be controlled with various flaps built into the sides of the generator. When you think of the volunteers from all walks of life who were likely to be trained in the use of the generator there were many no doubt had never hammered a nail into a piece of wood so the likelihood of hitting that firing pin within three attempts was highly unlikely hence the dents . 

As there was a severe shortage of anti aircraft guns and personnel to man them smoke generators were a quick solution to be able to afford some protection to factories and important insulations ..

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On 9/24/2021 at 12:38 PM, andy brown said:

Access to the common 1955/6..longcross road staple hill junction...

It could be said that finding three strikers doesn't prove this was a smoke school which is where I was until I found that evidence was right in front of my eyes thanks to the Luftwaffe ! If you look at the second picture at the start of the post you can see a road running across from let to right this is the Chertsey road 386 ,slightly below is a thin line running parallel with the road this a narrow gauge railway from the camp to the (what is now longcross road car park ) I recall there being railway lines being in the car par sixty years ago and the remains of a couple embedded in the concrete some 200yard away crossing the staple hill road . As the greater part of the common turns into a big when it rains wheeled vehicles do not fair well out there ,so if it was required that smoke be made from a moving vehicle for the purpose of trading what better than a railway ,although the pics are not good smoke can be seen eminating from the line about a third way from the left , I mentioned that as far as I could see smoke making here was quite short lived for certain reasons ! Which it is why most likely the line doesn't feature in any later maps or publications.

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1 hour ago, andy brown said:

It could be said that finding three strikers doesn't prove this was a smoke school which is where I was until I found that evidence was right in front of my eyes thanks to the Luftwaffe ! If you look at the second picture at the start of the post you can see a road running across from let to right this is the Chertsey road 386 ,slightly below is a thin line running parallel with the road this a narrow gauge railway from the camp to the (what is now longcross road car park ) I recall there being railway lines being in the car par sixty years ago and the remains of a couple embedded in the concrete some 200yard away crossing the staple hill road . As the greater part of the common turns into a big when it rains wheeled vehicles do not fair well out there ,so if it was required that smoke be made from a moving vehicle for the purpose of trading what better than a railway ,although the pics are not good smoke can be seen eminating from the line about a third way from the left , I mentioned that as far as I could see smoke making here was quite short lived for certain reasons ! Which it is why most likely the line doesn't feature in any later maps or publications.

For the most part the area in question will be that to the north side of the M3 as per my upside down map this is where the strikers were detected an area that we'll into the sixties with roll upon roll of rusting battened wire with an impenetrable growth of gorse growing through , here and there were rusting faded WD keep out signs many of the cylindrical  concrete road Block bollards were to be seen scattered in the hedge ,the area as a whole was the shape of a amphitheatre ,just to prove that this strange almost hostile unkept area could serve no usefull perpouse it was in the late fifties designated by Surrey cc a land fill site ,a far cry from the garden of Eden they claim it to be now ,an internationally important nature reserve . 

Most of the items I found out there had a beyond the norm of an expected level of corrosion to a level of disintegration in almost all cases ,yet on more southerly  areas of the common the same types of material showed no corrosion at all, any standing water will have a film of oil on it, in the summer months when the water table was low there is this distinct acrid smell of waste oil and areas away from public access ,footpaths or ditched if one peels back four or five inches of peat/ loam you will fin an equivalent depth of black ousey oil permiating the lower strata .but it was the corrosion that intrigued me .

So I didn't get any disturbance I would go out there 9/10/11 pm in the summer and one thing I noticed ,you know that summer evening most that you can see over the top of yet it doesn't touch the ground well after ten minutes walking in it or through it my face and hand would start to tingle ,by the time I got home 20 mins in the car the skin would be binding , this I had felt years before when filling new tractor battery's with electrolyte ....so I got some litmus paper held in a clothes peg and walked pm again suprise suprise the pink tuned blue ,tried it in the sand one area turned dark blue ..... No wonder they wanted it a land fill ....but what had been going on her ?

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13 hours ago, MrEd said:

Chobham common is on the Sandy bagshot formation - a highly acidic acid Heath soil. Hence the litmus paper change.

Hi not disputing the existence of its acidic value moreover was heading towards pointing  out the disparity between the north side amphitheatre and the rest of the common ..IMG_20210926_122555253.thumb.jpg.5daa20b015eae14c7467f88674933730.jpgIMG_20210926_121750628.thumb.jpg.30e9f1efadac198f2ad68f3b399f1085.jpg

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Just now, andy brown said:

Hi not disputing the existence of its acidic value moreover was heading towards pointing  out the disparity between the north side amphitheatre and the rest of the common ..IMG_20210926_122555253.thumb.jpg.5daa20b015eae14c7467f88674933730.jpgIMG_20210926_121750628.thumb.jpg.30e9f1efadac198f2ad68f3b399f1085.jpg

The first pic shows a (on the left) Johnson liquid beef drink BOV-RIL circa 1910 /14 brass bottle seal almost no corrosion from southside and a brass bezel from a protective mask (on the right ) from the north side guess eighty years old almost eaten away with corrosion .

2nd pic 

Bullet cases and yes I know there is a variation in the periods of manufacture but on the left south side on the right north side ... Oh and the army was never out here strange cases for  a poacher ....

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3 hours ago, andy brown said:

The first pic shows a (on the left) Johnson liquid beef drink BOV-RIL circa 1910 /14 brass bottle seal almost no corrosion from southside and a brass bezel from a protective mask (on the right ) from the north side guess eighty years old almost eaten away with corrosion .

2nd pic 

Bullet cases and yes I know there is a variation in the periods of manufacture but on the left south side on the right north side ... Oh and the army was never out here strange cases for  a poacher ....

IMG_20210926_143725264.thumb.jpg.91b91419d0c2ee59ced5d5715cbfc526.jpg

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Here is where the story starts to get a little darker ..this letter suggest I should contact Surrey heath council which I did ,only to find that surrey heath council had not been responsible for the common for quite a number of years  strange the government didn't know this ,y now I had enough evidence to suggest that a specific area of the common was not as user friendly as one was being led to believe is,the oil and ordinance that I had come across all I approached the Surrey advertiser newspaper with a article I had written highlighting the area in question along with the finds the reporter I approached was very reluctant to publish the article but finally agreed to ,there connotation of what I had given them was nothing like my article citing me as a X files wanna be not I thought very friendly ,but who where they afraid off ?.So now it had got serious IMG_20210928_120929818.thumb.jpg.1887da5ceac414dd0c559043fd12ec1d.jpg

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1 minute ago, andy brown said:

Here is where the story starts to get a little darker ..this letter suggest I should contact Surrey heath council which I did ,only to find that surrey heath council had not been responsible for the common for quite a number of years  strange the government didn't know this ,y now I had enough evidence to suggest that a specific area of the common was not as user friendly as one was being led to believe is,the oil and ordinance that I had come across all I approached the Surrey advertiser newspaper with a article I had written highlighting the area in question along with the finds the reporter I approached was very reluctant to publish the article but finally agreed to ,there connotation of what I had given them was nothing like my article citing me as a X files wanna be not I thought very friendly ,but who where they afraid off ?.So now it had got serious IMG_20210928_120929818.thumb.jpg.1887da5ceac414dd0c559043fd12ec1d.jpg

Whilst I was out on the common I kept in contact with the Surrey heath maintainance team in gorse lane chobham who for the greater part were quite helpful ,always eager to know what I had turned up ,I not suspecting that their motives were not the same as mine ,at one point I came across a series of hidden soil test rods those that have a variety of metals to test acidity ,when I mentioned this the mood changes more because I questioned what Surrey university was doing on this particular plot ,no answer apart from don't touch any of that equipment and keep away from that area ...So they were looking at what I had been looking at (acidity )or was it a case of what acidity is it ? 

Here we have a place the army never was a vast army camp that was never there shell cases that came from rifles that were never fired ,and a news paper that siding with the never was and a council that never was .So time to take this apart I thought ...you may have noticed that my attempt at capturing images of the time re the paintings ,they came from a booklet  on the subject matter I compiled in response to the never happened ,and strangely the publisher said to me " normally I print our name and address on our printed material for customers but in this case I'm not going to ... What did he know about or should I say who did he know about ...regarding the never was.....

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6 hours ago, andy brown said:

Whilst I was out on the common I kept in contact with the Surrey heath maintainance team in gorse lane chobham who for the greater part were quite helpful ,always eager to know what I had turned up ,I not suspecting that their motives were not the same as mine ,at one point I came across a series of hidden soil test rods those that have a variety of metals to test acidity ,when I mentioned this the mood changes more because I questioned what Surrey university was doing on this particular plot ,no answer apart from don't touch any of that equipment and keep away from that area ...So they were looking at what I had been looking at (acidity )or was it a case of what acidity is it ? 

Here we have a place the army never was a vast army camp that was never there shell cases that came from rifles that were never fired ,and a news paper that siding with the never was and a council that never was .So time to take this apart I thought ...you may have noticed that my attempt at capturing images of the time re the paintings ,they came from a booklet  on the subject matter I compiled in response to the never happened ,and strangely the publisher said to me " normally I print our name and address on our printed material for customers but in this case I'm not going to ... What did he know about or should I say who did he know about ...regarding the never was.....

I apologize if I appear to have zig zaged about with this but most of this took place over three years so you find something out that piece of the jigsaw that didn't fit with anything you had at the time so you have to double back ,,,quite often .....

If you look at the German pic second one in close to the top on the left close to the road running down the page, you will see an installation all on its own this appears to have no obvious vehicular access but never the less I'm sure you recognise it, .pretty sure this disappeared by the end of ww2 or soon after,I traced pipework down the hill ( to the right of the installation in the pic, ) and in a wooded area found this...IMG_20210928_195109956.thumb.jpg.8deea9eb75b4748a3eb8945332de31c7.jpg

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Not much to look at but turns out it's one wall of separation sump some eight ft X four ft and approx four ft deep still with its contents ,coagulated oil ,from this sump ran a line of the glazed brick type pipes to a small ditch ,all-around is broken brick and mortar as if the sump was in some building when it was operational..

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24 minutes ago, MrEd said:

this is very much like the buried tanks thread. No real evidence to be honest, just hearsay and conjecture etc.

Yes it is very much like the waterbeach saga and as with waterbeach chobham is far from finished ,as for conjecture well I gave out the coordinates for water each to the inch ,if that isn't putting your money where your mouth is I don't know what is ....patience.......

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