Buffer Depots

Canberra wrote. As for stuff being sold off, I was told that Cadburys "smash" was in fact stocks from the buffer stores that was sold off in the early seventies.

Most certainly not. It was manufactured at Catterick Bridge North Yorks. The former "Smash" site straddled part of what was the Military Railway line into Catterick Camp. Some of it, in military guise found its way into compo packs. It could have been surplus or timex compo that was sold off.

canberra;81433 wrote:

Back in the early nineties my parents started to get free tins of meat from the government, they looked to me like compo tins. Were they stocks from buffer stores? They also occassionally got intervention butter as well.

My Grandparents also got this stuff at the time, the stewed steak was the best I've ever had.
IIRC it was labelled EEC or EU Food Aid.

All the best,
PB

paf1950;81668 wrote:

Canberra wrote. As for stuff being sold off, I was told that Cadburys "smash" was in fact stocks from the buffer stores that was sold off in the early seventies.

Most certainly not. It was manufactured at Catterick Bridge North Yorks. The former "Smash" site straddled part of what was the Military Railway line into Catterick Camp. Some of it, in military guise found its way into compo packs. It could have been surplus or timex compo that was sold off.

I think B&Q took a lot for wallpaper paste:)

My father was a retained firefighter in Surrey from the mid 1970's to mid '80s. They attended a major fire in a flour store, near Fairoaks airfield in Surrey (not sure of the year). This "apparently no-one knew was there" and was supposedly a Government buffer store. I'm not exactly sure of the location but believe it is opposite the entrance. Oldmaps.co.uk shows this in the early 1970's as a MOD Navy records store? My key memory of the incident was my father coming home in a real mess. The fire tunics of all the crews, they were the heavy black ones in those days, were a complete write-off. They couldn't get the wet flour paste out.

A couple more locations, Trentside and the 1916 origin Kendal Rd in Shrewsbury.

Attached files [IMG]/community/81999=5593-Kendal road, Harlescott, Shrewsbury. 2000.jpg[/img] [IMG]/community/81999=5594-Kendal road, Harlescott, Shrewsbury.jpg[/img] [IMG]/community/81999=5595-trentside, Gunthorpe 2.jpg[/img] [IMG]/community/81999=5596-Trentside, Gunthorpe 3.jpg[/img]

There was a Buffer Depot somewhere in the Fordigbridge(Hants) area. Back in the 60/70s it was signposted from the main road to the north of the town. After the bypass was built I didn't go through the town so can't say long it was signed or how long it was actuallly there ...wherever "there" might have been...at a guess somewhere in the vicinty of the long gone railway station in Ashford Rd.(west of the town)

NGR SU13631 14344 would fit that location.

Here's another view of the buffer warehouses on the Trent at Gunthorpe.

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These were built post war, presumably someone thought that enough of the nations river and canal structure would survive post nuclear spasm to be of use. Image also shows the Unicorn, the favoured pub for those stationed at Newton.
As an aside, I gather that Nottinghamshire had a war-time buffer at Newstead. I've heard lurid tales of underground passages full of food etc, but nothing definite. I can't even find a file on it in the TNA archives.

Are you saying this one was built post WW2 or all of this style ? The one at Haddington appears on the 1945 GE and the now demolished one at Ladybank (FIFE) was built very early WW2 according to a chap who lived on the farm land it was built on.
TED

Sorry, I meant just this site. As far as I know. Also, AFAIK, it is the only riverside one. The reference to Newstead was Newstead Abbey, one time home for Lord Byron, north of Nottingham. I have a aerial picture of that too, somewhere.