Andrewsfield Bomb Dump

After a few PM’s with Adrian Gray, I went to try and find what was left of the bomb dump at Andrewsfield, which is located in a large wood to the south of the airfield, a friend of mine who is a woodsman told me that all sorts of things were lurking in there.
I had an appointment in Little Dunmow and came back past the still active airfield.
It’s not a good idea to park in the countryside around there due to the ever present Pykies, so I left the car in Saling village and walked.
If you head off down the road south from the village, the footpath goes off down a track where they is some sort of a reclaimation yard and a re-clad hangar which appeared to be unused.
The concrete perimeter road is blocked by a gate with ‘No footpath’ signs, not surprising really as it takes you along the end of the active runway.
The real path goes off at a tangent, then doubles back past a very intact T2 hangar which appeared to be full of concrete blocks on pallets, all this time I never saw a soul.
Heading towards the wood, the path markers dissapear, but there is a clearly defined track along the side of the wood.
Going along that, there are no barriers or signs preventing you from going in, but it was obvious that the local landowner used the place for breeding pheasants, not that I saw a single bird.
The concrete roadways are intact, but all buildings have been reduced to rubble, I say all, it’s a big place and I didn’t like to go very far in without actual permission, however, the earth bunds obviously used as blast walls seemed to be in place.
Generally it was a bit of an eery place, with it’s compliment of farm junk, abandoned cars and even a boat!
Not a lot to see really, but it’s such a big wood that anything could be in there, I doubt whether it would be easily accessible during the summer though.
I braved the showers and headed back to the car.
It’s interesting how no buildings survive close to the the actual airfield apart from the 2 hangars, however, heading away from Saling, there are structures all over the place, as far away as Rayne and Panfield.

Next on the list will be Earls Colne. I recall many structures in the woods around the site of Marks Hall, but this has been turned into a country park now and many of them have been demolished, there is an interesting scale grass representation of the old runways formed in the park and this I think is the area where the dump was, it can clearly be seen on Google Earth.
I haven’t been there for a few years, but at least its all on land accesible to the public, as long as you pay your entrance fee.