Monument record MBC44817 - A Second World War roadside ammunition dump, Welsh Lane.

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 west side of Welsh Lane and centred at SP 65447 37067, the ammunition storage area comprises 12 rectangular buildings, each about 5 x 3 metres, 11 laid out with long sides perpendicular to the road and 1 parallel with the lane, each spaced between 9-11 metres apart over about 146 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 none are visible on aerial photographs taken in 1961 but were likely to have been demolished by the mid-1950s (1-6).