| Summary : Gorse Farm is a farmstead dating to before 1923 (first recorded on Ordnance Survey maps in 1923). Earlier buildings and an area of woodland, 'The Tips Coverts', located behind Gorse Farm are recorded on an earlier 1886 Ordnance Survey map. This area is traversed by the line of Box Tunnel, a two mile railway tunnel on Isambard Kingdom Brunel's Great Western Railway. An air shaft to this tunnel is located in the woodland behind the farm.The layout of the currently disused (2011) stone-built farmhouse and the range of farm buildings which extend to the east appear to have little changed since the early 20th century. Two brick air shafts are located in front of the farm in an open field. One is directly in front of the farm buildings, and the other is a little further away, near to an asbestos-covered hut. This hut is in a poor condition and dates to the Second World War. Below ground level, there is a complex of stone mines which was developed following the construction of Box Tunnel in the 1840s. These were requisitioned by the War Office in the 1930s and form part of the Corsham tunnel system which was used as ammunition depots, an aircraft engine factory and Cold War Central Government War Headquarters (see record 1394896).In 2011 the land is believed to be under consideration for disposal by the Ministry of Defence. |
More information : Gorse Farm
Gorse Farm site is traversed by the line of the Box Tunnel, a notable feature of Brunel's Great Western Railway, and includes one of the tunnel shafts in the woodland behind Gorse Farm. There are also a number of features related to the underground quarry tunnels, including air shafts and lifts.
Landscape and Settlement Context:
The ground slopes from north to south. Nineteenth-century maps show the site as an undeveloped area of large fields, with two areas of woodland towards the upper end of the site described as `The Tips Coverts' and an area of mixed woodland at the lower end of the site described as Thorney Pits. This latter woodland appears little altered in present-day mapping.
The western of the two coverts also survives largely intact behind Gorse Farm and includes an air shaft to the tunnel below. A small building at the southern edge of this covert, presumably an agricultural shed or barn, first appears in the 1886 map. The 1923 map shows a larger group of buildings which are labelled as Gorse Farm. The layout of the current abandoned farmstead appears little changed from this date. The stone-built farmhouse and the range of farm buildings which extend to the east are currently (February 2011) vacant and appear to have been disused for many years. In the open field in front of the farmhouse are an open brick air shaft (dating from the 1840s) and an isolated asbestos-covered hut (dating to the Second World War), in a derelict condition.
Below ground level, there is a complex of stone mines which was developed following the construction of the Box Tunnel in the 1840s. The mines below Gorse Farm were requisitioned by the War Office in the 1930s. They comprise the following areas: West Lung (an undeveloped area used for ventilation); part of Groundstone Quarry (an undeveloped area used for ventilation); the western part of Spring Quarry (developed as a aircraft engine factory during the Second World War and adapted to house the central Government War Headquarters in the Cold War); and Thorney Pits. The exact locations of these mines are shown in Figure 3 of the characterisation study by Oxford Archaeology (2008) - see source 3. (1)
Aerial Photographs taken as part of the Wiltshire Military Disposals project. For more information contact the NMR Archives. (2)
A detailed and full description of the Corsham tunnel system and quarries can be found in this report: Joint Support Unit (JSU), Corsham, A Characterisation Study Of The Quarries. Their 20th-Century Defence Uses And Related Above-Ground Infrastructure. (3)
Gorse Farm displayed on Ordnance Survey map 1923. (4)
'The Tips Coverts' and a building displayed on Ordnance Survey map 1886. (5) |