Monument record MBC44806 - A Second World War roadside ammunition dump, Home Farm.

A Second World War roadside ammunition dump is visible on historic aerial photographs and was mapped as part of the North Buckinghamshire Aerial Investigation and Mapping project (EBC18304). Located on the east side of Stowe Castle Road about 350 metres WNW of Home Farm and centred at SP 68755 37897, the ammunition storage area comprises 15 rectangular buildings, 14 being about 5 x 3 metres and 1 about 12 x 3 metres, all laid out with long sides parallel with the road, spaced over about 265 metres. These portable corrugated iron shelters, or hutments, were usually camouflaged and covered stacks of artillery or small arms ammunition. Roadside storage not only made the ammunition easily accessible but dispersed the risk of a large loss of munitions in one event as a result of a German air raid. A contemporary account of a schoolboy at Stowe School recalls that there were stores of ammunition along the small local roads before D-Day. The munitions storage hutments are present on aerial photographs taken in 1946, but all have been demolished by 1961 (1-5).