Monument record MBC44823 - A Second World War roadside ammunition dump, Stowe to Water Stratford road.

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 SE facing side of the Stowe-Water Stratford road and centred at SP 66332 36257, the ammunition storage area comprises 4 rectangular buildings, each about 5 x 3 metres, laid out with long sides perpendicular to the road, spaced over about 36 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 are not visible on aerial photographs taken in 1961 though were likely to have been demolished by the mid-1950s (1-5).