Interesting BoB photo

[brando]

When I was a kid in London there were still plenty of steam-rollers in evidence, and there were even a few used on the construction of the M1 in the early 60's. The most common type was built by a firm called Aveling & Porter.

Steam propulsion was perhaps more universal than you think. As well as rollers and traction engines there were many hundreds of steam lorries on the roads in the Thirties and Forties. Google "steam lorries" to see just how widespread the network was.

It was in fact the post-war availibility of secondhand army transport that ended the reign of steam on Britain's roads. While the "wrong kind of steam" might be a nit-picker's factor, the presence of Sentinel or Foden steam lorries on the London streets would be entirely correct. All the major railway companies had fleets of them at their London goods termini. They were certainly much more widespread and numerous than petrol or diesel-driven goods vehicles.

[Davedog74]

google photo was taken close to an open day i reckon,and the fact its fenced off is a good sign. so your pic,do u you know what part of hornchurch were looking at?

[first-things-first]

@brando

Thanks again for the insights. No one better than a first hand witness.

Once again war brings the new technology - good or bad.

@Davedog74

You sound like me - trying to fit the pictures into the current views - always seem to be looking for St. Georges smoke stack!

We are in luck! The source photo which led me to the internet search is from Flypast's current issue Bob supplement (p74 & p75).

The picture is shown in full (the image I linked to is cropped - the left of the image is only shown). To the right is a perimeter track, firing butts and the all important smoke stack. I would guess it was taken around where the lake is now next to the Ingrebourne.

BTW - I do have the Richard Smith books - a definite labour of love. John Gill is the fitter I mentioned earlier.

[Davedog74]

the same photo is in second to none p80,with a present day comparison p156 walk from e pen car park round to the left follow past where trim mile was for about 200 yards,turn round towards car park and thats the shot,looking from spit dispersal over to blenheim dispersal,there is a bit of original peri track parallel to current path,i thought firing butts were on the other side ,where the landfill is,past tit lake.those books answered a lot of questions from when i was a kid,i had hornchurch offensive signed by a 603 squadron pilot who has sadly passed away.isnt mr gill something to do with the hornchurch wing,the country park ranger is john,hes good for a chat,told me every now and then a tractor would go over a bit of grass and the ground would sink revealing a dome shaped deppression,a lot of locals say hornchurch was an underground base he wont let me over there with a metal detector though(not that i have ever used one)would be nice to get some bits for purfleet .

[first-things-first]

We must have been at the same signings.

I have assumed that the firing butts were the brick walls with the supports. I have seen pictures of a similar structure near to one of the hangars (probably the tit lake one you mentioned).

Not sure what people meant by an underground base? There are some underground control rooms near to where the guard house was - all filled in with bits of concrete when we were kids.

[Davedog74]

i think the structure in question is a blast wall,for the building behind it,t.v program, two men in a trench did a show there,as you probably know,they found 303 shells from firing butt area ,but speaking to john,he said they had to go through 2 metres of 70s landfill to get to them,and the local kids terrorised the security for the set overnight.