Castle Hill first came to our attention in early 1995. Information came from a former Allied Intelligence Officer during WW2. He said there were a number of entries on Castle Hill. An ex-serving member from 11 Stores Group mentioned he used to pick up type writers from this location to be repaired.
Recently we visited the West End quarry and Green Street sites.The Green Street site and SES complex are now void of any visible signs of the existence of underground structures.But the quarry area still has the foundations of the old crushing and processing plants. We were told by a local that there was a tunnel door there, that could be seen to this day. He called it the “Blue Doors”.
At the top quarry sits the foundation to what looks like the old crusher plant. On this foundation is blue graffiti. According to our source, this was the doors. But an inspection of it revealed nothing to indicate there were any doors there, or that it’s location could have been used as an entrance.
Our investigation went cold until recently, when we were contacted by a man who said he and his brother used to play around the quarry area when they were kids.His brother knew of doors at the top quarry that he had seen when playing around there.They had both been up there recently, but were unable to find the place they had seen the doors.
A Google photo of the quarry was sent to us, with areas we had been investigating. What was the arch structure was between the top and bottom quarries next to the so called “Blue Doors”.
To date, we had not been able to find anyone who could explain what that arch was used for. So we set out to find any photos that would shed light on what the arch was used for.
After scouring all the old aerial photos we had access to, we finally found what we were looking for.
The two photos below are taken from Google maps.The circled area is the arch structure.
The first image is a bit hard to make out, but shows where it is in the quarry.The second photo is a closer view, where you can see the structure and the shadow on the ground clearly shows the arch.
Below are a run of aerial photos.
Image 61 (above) shows clearest, the arch and crushing plant at the top quarry.But all three photos show the quarry while it was operational and all show the arch & crusher plant.
Below is a blow up of image 61 which clearly shows a pipe or tunnel running back into the hill, with a conveyor coming out which leads to the bottom quarry. Is this the exit point of the all rock cut out of the hill as the tunnels were constructed?
We are looking for anyone who worked in the Quarry or anyone who can remember where any tunnels or entrances are.