Monument record 0420802902 - QUEEN'S TEMPLE, Stowe Landscape Gardens

The firing range is close to the Queen's Temple. Today the Combined Cadet Forces uses the firing range, but research indicates the range was built in 1943 for the Home Guard (B40).
The rifle range is mentioned in The Stoic Magazines of 1933 and 1934 suggesting a construction date around this time. This firing range is known to have replaced an earlier range. The range was set into a west-facing slope at the head of a narrow valley in the Hawkwell Field area. The main componet was a high wall, 18m in length, 4.3m high, built if dark blue engineering bricks and served as a protective screen behind the targets. From the face of wall two lines of virtical wooden sleepers of descending height probably held back the two ends of the sand embankment carrying the targets. Infront of the wall a rectangular depression formed a ricochet pit 17m long and 16m wide and 1.8m deep. Firing took place from a concrete platform, 10.5m long and 3.8m wide, to the SW of the wall. The shed, 3x2m and 2.2m in height, was constructed from corrugated iron sheets secured to a crude timber frame. The sheets had been painted light green colour to provide some degree of camouflage (B72).

A Second World War firing range is visible on historic aerial photographs and was mapped as part of the North Buckinghamshire Aerial Investigation and Mapping project (EBC18304). Located at the site of the current Miniature Rifle Range, between Queen’s Temple and Temple in Stowe Landscape Gardens and centred at SP 67835 37542, the 23 metres (25 yards) small arms range comprises a building about 9 x 7 metres which includes the firing points and also housed the armoury of .303 rifles of the CCF (Combined Cadet Force). 25 yards to the NE is the butts. Still standing in 1947, the rifle range has been demolished by 1961 (73-77).