Monument record 4093 - Airfield Fuel Depot at Twemloe Green

<1> CBA, 2002, Defence of Britain Project, 2260 (Digital Archive). SCH4380.

World War 2 Airfield Fuel Building. Possibly also an emergency Cold War depot.

<2> GeoInformation Group, 1945-1948, 1945-1948 RAF National Survey (Aerial Photograph). SCH8190.

The fuel depot is not extant on photography dating between 1945-8.

<3> Various, Various, Oral communication to the HER (Oral Communication). SCH2330.

The fuel storage complex is visible on photographs dating between 1971-3 (source 4) and lies immediately adjacent to the railway on its east side just to the south of Goostrey. It comprises six circular earth-covered storage tanks with associated buildings. The tanks are surrounded by a substantial ditch and bank. It is similar to two other storage facilities at Beeston (CSMR: 4096) and Chorlton-by-Backford (CSMR: 4233). Air photographs dating to 2010 (source 5) show the complex to be still intact.

<4> Huntings Surveys Ltd, 1971-1973, 1971-1973 County Survey (Aerial Photograph). SCH4881.

<5> Bluesky International Ltd, 2010, 2010 Bluesky Survey (Aerial Photograph). SCH5444.

<6> W D Cocroft and R J C Thomas, 2003, Cold War - Building for Nuclear Confrontation 1946 - 1989 (Book). SCH4466.

A secure fuel supply is vital to the prosecution of mechanised warfare and it is imperative that in emergencies the country's fuel stock was moved rapidly away from the vulnerable port areas where the bulk storage facilities and refineries are. The basic infrastructure of pipelines, linking terminals, refineries and inland buried storage facilities, remained from the war. The system was operated by by commercial companies, the activities of which wold be co-ordinated by the oil mobilisation control in time of war. Some of the aviation fuel depots were controlled directly by the RAF, but they were progressivley relinquished to the Ministry of Power during the late 1950s and early 1960s.