Yardley Chase
2885035
201060220
2008-03-26T14:15:57Z
Thaurisil
2487040
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'''Yardley Chase''' is a fairly large [[forest]] in [[Northamptonshire]] ([[England]]), which consists of two similar shaped forests, which are each about 6 miles long, and 2 miles wide, in places. The forests are about 3 miles south of [[Yardley Hastings]] in [[Northamptonshire]], and about 3 miles north of [[Olney, Milton Keynes|Olney]] in the [[Milton Keynes (borough)|Borough of Milton Keynes]].
== Military use ==
Yardley Chase contains some large concrete huts, about 12m (40 feet) long, and about 6-8m (20-25 feet) wide, which were used during [[World War II]] to store bombs. They continued in use after the war, until the 1990s when the [[Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom)|Ministry of Defence]] shut them down when it became obvious that they would be useless in a [[Nuclear warfare|nuclear war]]. The site was served by a branch of the Northampton-Bedford railway line and evidence of revetted tracks are still visible around the site which is only a few kilometers East of the former depot of the [[Royal Pioneer Corps]] at Simpson Barracks in [[Wootton, Northamptonshire|Wootton]]. The site also has numerous small bunkers within it and is criss-crossed by barbed wire fences once past the main perimeter. It has several tracks that lead to the various bunkers and fair amounts of military debris (mainly used pyrotechnics) scattered around it.
The Eastern munitions site is larger than its Western neighbour and the bomb storage buildings, in addition to being less numerous, are also mostly surrounded by water-filled moats. The storage buildings at the Western site are surrounded by earth banks. The Eastern site was connected to the Western site by a rail track.
The site is nowadays used by Army and Air cadets, as well as the [[Territorial Army]] units for basic skills training and field-craft. This site is closed to the public.
[[Category:forests and woodlands of England]]
[[Category:Geography of Northamptonshire]]
[[Category:Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Northamptonshire]]
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