Location
United Kingdom
50° 41' 13.3836" N, 50° 41' 13.3836" E

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Field Notes

Winfrith Science and Technology Park is on the former site of an Experimental Nuclear Facility.

A number of companies are now occupying the site, and some have links with the MOD in the area. DERA, the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency has a facility at the site, and conducts research from here that includes experiments in underwater acoustics, listed online as 'acoustic scattering' and with links to 'Poseidon', a marine navigation project based across the EU.

Clearly a very active decommissioned site. Like many such decommissioned sites currently under the control of Atomic Energy Authority, much work is being put into the total dismantling of the place in order to return it safely to its former natural state. A science in itself - with much of the new technology site dedicated to this area of research, the decommissioning process will oversee nuclear sludge being removed in barrels, and we can look forward to a fomerly lethal place being returned to a rural idol in only a few years time. Main access is through a single gate (photographed from a moving vehicle), but a better view can be taken in from on top of the mound that rises about 1/2 mile prior to the turning on Gatemore Road. On climbing this hill, outside the limits of the site boundary and its fencing, it was noted that the hill appeared to be man made, a mound made from past works perhaps? Unexpectedly, a number of steel doors and concrete reinforcements and grilles were stumbled upon, that seem to provide access to some kind of subterranean space. Perhaps a bunker or shelter?