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mookster
Location: Oxford, UK Gender: Male Total Likes: 2377 likes
| | | Secret Wartime Underground Factory < on 11/5/2018 6:55 PM > | Reply with Quote
| | | This is a complex I have had my eyes on for years, and with a new housing development edging closer and closer to the entrance I finally managed to get to see this beautiful place for myself before it's either backfilled with rubble or welded shut for good. I don't do much underground stuff however these places are fascinating. Shadow Factories were facilities located (usually) under large factories in order to construct sensitive wartime equipment and vehicles in secret and away from both reconnaissance craft and enemy bombing runs. I had explored one such site before numerous times a few years back before they were filled in - the infamous tunnels under the semi-demolished Guest Keen & Nettlefold fasteners factory located not a million miles from this place. However this place was a different thing entirely being a whole lot more original and untouched - and nowhere near as dangerous as the GKN tunnels were! This particular complex is located under the now demolished Austin, later Rover, East Works part of the enormous Longbridge car factory. The factory is now almost entirely gone with only a modern factory facility for testing and development still occupying part of the site. The entrance is very well hidden however I fear once development reaches it they will seal it up good and proper. There is a separate set of tunnels located under another part of the former factory however they have been sealed up for years - an Austin Mini was famously left down there by workers who used it as a tunnel runaround after it was damaged on the production line - the car was removed a few years back and is now in the care of a car museum nearby. Anyway back to the explore. After a fairly convoluted route in we found ourselves in the tunnel mouth and began the trek into darkness. It was beautifully peaceful in there, a real isolating experience. I'd forgotten how much I love these secret hidden industrial places, and it gave me a chance to practice my light painting skills. After breathing in nothing but oil fumes for a couple of hours it was a blessed relief to get back out into fresh air at the end of it, job well done. 1
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Thanks for looking
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| mookster
Location: Oxford, UK Gender: Male Total Likes: 2377 likes
| | | Re: Secret Wartime Underground Factory < Reply # 7 on 11/6/2018 5:13 PM > | Reply with Quote
| | | Posted by Baldran As a side note, it seems like I keep stumbling over Longbridge recently. I just scanned a large collection of Kodachrome slides taken by an noted American photographer, which I pulled out of the trash at my office, many of which I posted over in Other. A good few of them show the Austin assembly line at Longbridge in 1965. For all the reading I did on Longbridge to try to match up the images I have, I didn't see any mention of this "shadow factory". I have to wonder if that photographer was aware of it back in 1965, and can't help but wish that he would have gotten some photos of it then.
| Thats so cool, I'm going to have to check them out!! It's unclear when the tunnels were closed off but I reckon it was some time before the factory closed after the collapse of MG Rover in 2005, judging by how rusted much of the supporting structure of the tunnels is. Posted by DescentOnARope What a sweet location. Going through these, it took until about halfway down for it to set in just how dark it is down there. #13 really emphasizes just how foreboding this place is. Great set!
| It's absolutely pitch black in there, the only light source is from the tunnel entrance you can just about see in #13 and #14!
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