Part of the surviving war-time hut complex at the Vickers storage depot at Riseholme (Julian Temple).
dispersal of aircraft sub-assembly and component production following the serious air raid on its factory at Brooklands on 4th September 1940. Requisitioned premises, such as engineering workshops, film studios, garages and public halls were used wherever possible, but about 10 sites were purpose-built, including two on the B365 Seven Hills Road near Cobham, which were officially known as ‘Depot W86 Corbie Wood’ and ‘Depot W63 Riseholme’.
Both sites were built in 1941-42 and designed
to serve as Finished Parts Stores, with the prime task of maintaining the regular supply of compo- nents to the Erecting Shop at the main factory. Parts which had been manufactured in locations all over the area were brought together here as soon as they were made and were then delivered to the production lines when required. This ensured that the mass-production of Wellingtons, and later of Warwicks, was protected from what would today be referred to as supply-chain problems.
W63 Riseholme was named after the large house which lay to the south and, unfortunately, no official war-time plans of the site appear to have survived, although some details of the layout may be obtained from large scale Ordnance Survey maps covering squares TQ0861 and TQ0961. These reveal that the site entrance was at TQ091613 and from here a short curved approach road led to a 250-metre long tarmac track which lay on a west-north-west heading and formed the centre of the site. Six hard-standings were located along this track, four on the north side and two on the south (at the west end), whilst on the south side at the east end there was a substantial brick headquarters building. Between this site and the large house at Riseholme lay two smaller houses – Oakmead and Oakmead Lodge – and it is possible that parts of their grounds were also used to increase the capacity of the site.
Approximately half a mile north lay W86 21
Corbie Wood, with its entrance at TQ091625, directly opposite the main West Avenue entrance to Whiteley Village. This occupied a large site immediately adjacent to Seven Hills Road and measured an area of some 250 metres from north to south and 200 metres from east to west. Beside the road a single Bellman aircraft hangar lay at the north end and from here four Robin hangars were spaced out southwards. At right angles to the road and about 75 metres further back stood an even larger T.2-type hangar, while the rest of the build- ings consisted of four small ‘Iris’ huts spaced out in the north-west corner of the site.
It appears that both storage sites specialised in particular ranges of components, which would have included parts as large as wing and fuselage assemblies and bomb beams. These were brought in from dispersed manufacturing locations as far away as Thames Ditton, Hanworth, Staines and Twickenham by a large and varied fleet of road vehicles, which also provided transport between the storage depots and the main factory.
Both sites remained in use for storage for a short while after the war but Corbie Wood was then used as a government food store, although Vickers-Armstrongs re-occupied it again from 1952 before finally vacating it in late 1957. Although some records survive for W86 Corbie Wood – including evidence that a military heli- copter landing site was used there in the 1960s and 1970s – both sites were largely cleared of buildings and gradually reverted to privately- owned woodland.
In 2016 W63 Riseholme was sold to a developer named James Scott who recently began clearing post-war trees and undergrowth to reveal the extent of surviving war-time remains. These include the complex of brick huts near the entrance, three large air-raid shelters, concrete bases for the six large storage sheds and the access track, all in reasonable condition. Visiting the Museum on New Year’s Day, Mr Scott requested our help in recording the history and archaeology
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