Monument record MBC44852 - A Second World War roadside ammunition dump, Stowe Avenue.

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 Stowe Avenue about 433 metres SSE of Manor Farm and centred at SP 68650 35172, the ammunition storage area comprises 10 rectangular buildings, each about 5 x 3 metres set out with long sides parallel with the road, laid out about 9-13 metres apart over a distance of about 75 metres. With 6 on the NE facing side and 4 on the SW facing side of the road, 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).