Monument record MBC44845 - A Second World War roadside ammunition dump, unnamed lane joining Radclive and Chackmore.

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 both sides of the unnamed lane joining Radclive and Chackmore and centred at SP 67650 35296, the ammunition storage area comprises 9 rectangular buildings. 7 are about 5 x 3 metres, of which 6 are set out in 3 pairs with long sides perpendicular to W facing side of the road, each pair spaced between 8-9 metres apart. On the E facing side of the road, 2 buildings are about 9 x 3 metres and 1 about 5 x 3 metres, set out with long sides parallel with the road and all over a distance of about 70 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 they were likely to have been demolished by the mid-1950s (1-5).