Rifle Ranges - Cannock Chase

**whitebake** · 16th January 2012, 13:23

This area has an incredible amount of military history, I've been doing a lot of research into it myself and have found building remains, railway routes, practice trenches and ranges, sewage treatment remains, bullet tips, midden mounds, man-made waterways, theres lots to see but its a vast area and I've only seen a little of it to date. Just signed up for Flickr and already maxed out for this month, I did manage to creep a few in though, if you dont mind me poaching your thread...

I'd encourage any new explorers to visit this area, I can provide map points for many features that I've discovered so far, and its all completely free and open access to the public. Unfortunately not much remains of the buildings themselves, but there are artifacts to be found and theres many visitors centres where information is abundant.

Shrapnel:

One of many holes to fall down:

Not much is left of Brindley village, except some foundations and memorials:

Wartime crockery:

Some bits retrieved from a midden mound:

A pillbox thats not in bad condition:

I think this is a gun emplacement, theres 4 turrets, each turret has a concrete circular walled base spanning around 20 metres:

Each pair of turrets has the remains of what was perhaps an ammo store or comms bunker:

Water or fuel tank, buried in the moss:

Remains of a wash room:

Thats just a few to be getting on with, I'll perhaps start a fresh thread when Flickr resets my allowance

**Darloboy** · 17th January 2012, 13:14

I only live a few miles from there now but never actually walked the place!

**whitebake** · 17th January 2012, 14:50

the place is immense mate and there were 2 seperate camps in WW1 so theres bits and pieces everywhere

**Darloboy** · 17th January 2012, 15:19

When we moved over this way I brought a book, "A town for four winters!" Must get down to reading it!

**whitebake** · 17th January 2012, 20:48

Yes ive seen that book, lots of old photos and info and a good place to start, the net is also rife with stuff from StaffsPastTrack and others. I think theres some information in there about the site of the Messines Model, which I've found but theres not much to see any more

**whitebake** · 18th January 2012, 09:22

Not sure if I'm allowed to do this, I guess the mods will remove it if I'm out of line, this is a link to a group I created on facetube a while ago and shows all the photo's that Ive taken, lots to see, but I'm out of upload allowance on flickr til next month so cant put them up here just yet
https://www.facebook.com/groups/213260578753097/

**yamahapaul** · 19th January 2012, 18:48

Originally Posted by whitebake

I'm out of upload allowance on flickr til next month so cant put them up here just yet

Use photobucket, its free and unlimited.. ish

---------- Post added at 19:48 ---------- Previous post was at 19:38 ----------

I've split these off from the original thread as it was getting a bit lengthy

Originally Posted by whitebake

Thats just a few to be getting on with, I'll perhaps start a fresh thread when Flickr resets my allowance

please start a new thread with your pics

**whitebake** · 21st January 2012, 20:39

EEk.. theres hundreds! Only reason I used Flickr is because it came integrated with my HTC and I already had a Yahoo login.. I'll start a thread soon but think I'll do some watermarking first (just worked out how to do that today)