This page is part of a site tour of the Coleshill estate during WW2. Click here to start the tour. 

Please Note: The Coleshill House site and grounds are owned by the National Trust. The woods and grounds of the house are all strictly private and access is limited to set days a year. See our events page for their official open days. Attempting to access the site outside of these times is not only trespassing but could damage the future of our work and relationship with the Trust and villagers. Please respect this.

Suspected Observation Post or Ammo Store

These images were taken when the "observation post" in Cuckoo Pen Wood was being excavated.
It was the normal double-skinned chamber, except that the inner walls were not corrugated iron, but asbestos.

The chamber had an access from the top of a shaft leading to one of the old water tunnels. A pot-holer friend surveyed the tunnel and found that it led to a point below the site of the former kitchens. Following a fire in the original ammo store during the war, we think this was the replacement, carefully sited some distance from the house and accessible only by discrete means.

This is the same space in March 2011.

More images and info on this can be seen on our Coleshill Past Discoveries page.

All images are copyright to RMARG

Read more about the house pre war here and during the war here.