Friday 13 June 2008

Local Historians puzzled

Just a quick update. The experts that visited last night were actually a bit baffled! They said it wasn't what they were expecting to find. They said they hadn't really seen inside one like it before, but thought that the roof was definitely fabricated from German steel (as opposed to British steel seized in France, or French steel).

They agreed that it seemed to have been set up for heavy machinery (or something heavy that needed to be attached to the floor at least) and could have been a workshop, but they were not sure what for. They thought it might have been a very early construction at the start of the war, and that it still may have Luftwaffe links, because apparently the Luftwaffe were based in the vicinity. They also thought that the Lee Enfield guns were probably put in there after the war before it was sealed, rather than have leftovers from the war itself.

Whilst inside tonight took a picture of the (horse-drawn) cart arm...



and also we noticed that the green gunk / paint had now turned orange since two days ago? Deterioration due to change in air quality perhaps? I think that I should start a clean-up and maintenance program for the tunnel soon.



The local experts said it would actually probably help to clear the floor now to look for clues, and that they would go away and do some research through the papers and various archives that they hold. I'll post what they come back with. All in all, they were pleased to have seen it, but said that it raised more questions than answers!

They did say that it appeared to be fit for use, which was good to hear.

Dave decided to stay home and catch up on all the reading. This blog had some 33000 hits in its first day yesterday ! Crazy! Thanks for reading.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Good stuff mate, I'm very interested to see what the history buffs manage to dig up from the archives.

Keep up the good (posting and digging) work!

Unknown said...

What if it actually was some kind of artillery bunker?
The heavy machinery was actually a very large gun?

You never know! Super interesting, thanks for the exciting read!

Chris Pickering said...

33,000 hits? I'd get some adverts up now!

Have they confirmed the rifles are definitely Lee Enfield now then?

I'm sure they have good reasons for saying they were put there after the war, but I think the idea of Small Scale Raiding Force hiding out there for a bit before blowing up a gun implacement or something is far more exciting. :)

Tim said...

Rails on floor, long tunnel, on top of hill...

V1 launching ramp?

or storage facility possibly

Where does it point at?

Unknown said...

It's quite possible the Lee Enfields were associated with Luftwaffe use. The Luftwaffe was down towards the end of the list when it came to getting standard German weapons. It's well documented that the Luftwaffe issued captured arms to the guards at their PoW camps, for example.

A couple of rifles for use by sentries at an AA gun site, who would not be expecting to defend against anything other than locals with sabotage on their minds, would seem quite possible.

Or, given the missing parts, they were broken down after the war by someone who wanted the parts but didn't want to be caught with a couple of unregistered rifles?