Thread: Cannock Chase - Brindley Bottom

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 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:


Again, drainage in this one too:


Meeting point of two concrete bases, standing in the dug out (the drain hole in the photo above is round about where my right hip is):


Etched into one of the walls of the dug out, "Built By"... the rest is hard to read, the date appears to be 1929:



Meeting point of two concrete bases, standing at the most West turret:


Another turret, this one missing the fixing bolts:


Small curved wall where concrete base meets other structure:




Third turret:






And thats it, for now...

Originally Posted by whitebake

Question for the mods... I've a set of pictures relating to the "balancing pools" placemark on the map above, shall I post them as a reply to this thread, or would you prefer I start another? Just as it relates to the same map..?

Start another I think is best