Monument record MBC47915 - Second World War Ministry of Food Buffer Depot No. 450K, Quainton Road railway station

A Second World War Ministry of Food Buffer Depot No. 450K is visible on historic aerial photographs and was mapped as part of the Aylesbury Vale Aerial Investigation and Mapping project (EBC18604). Located at Quainton Road railway station and centred at SP 73734 18905, this facility was constructed by the Ministry of Food around around 1941 or 1942 as part of a national strategy to store emergency foods for the civilian population in time of war at purpose-built sites located in fairly rural locations but that also had good transport links. The Quainton depot, which stored flour, sugar and potatoes, comprises a fence that encloses a modular steel-framed, brick-skinned building about 65 x 37 metres and seven Romney huts, each about 29 x 11 metres, accessed by a road system. Also visible on aerial photographs taken in 1947 is an open-topped rectangular walled structure about 20 x 5 metres that may have been an emergency water supply for firefighting, adjacent to which is a small building about 4 x 5 metres of uncertain function, but possibly latrines for site personnel. Railway sidings were built at the facility from the adjacent mainline railway that curve around to the main depot site. These buffer depot sites, including Quainton, often remained in use until the end of the Cold War in the 1990s. The effects of nuclear weapon strikes in Britain would have impacted the normal production, import and distribution of food supplies. In such circumstances, the post-war Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) would then become the Food and Agriculture Organisation, responsible for supplying food nationally. The strategic reserve of food that had been kept at the buffer depots would be released by the emergency government authorities, who would be responsible for its collection and distribution to emergency feeding centres for the surviving population until the peace-time food system could be rebuilt. The buffer depots and their stockpiles of food had been disposed of by the mid-1990s.Between 1961 and 1975, only one of the wartime building and some associated structures are demolished. Between 1999 and 2003, one of the Romney huts is demolished. On aerial photographs taken in 2023 and recent remote sensing data, the remaining wartime features remain extant (1-12).