RAF Chilmark and Chilmark village

Antiquity
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Victorian and inter-war quarries


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RAF railhead


RAF Chilmark Narrow Gauge Railway want from a nearby British Rail depot to a former ammunition and bomb depot at RAF Chilmark. It opened in ? and closed in 1995. A gate and railway tracks embedded into concrete remained (as of 2007) on a abandoned level crossing of the bridleway that runs between the nearby Ham Cross, then to a Chilmark unclassified road and finally the village of Teffont Evias. .

RAF ammunition store
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Government atomic bunker


An underground bunker was built in the ravine in 1985, ready to act as the Regional Government Headquarters (RGHQ) for the southwest region in the event of a nuclear attack. It ceased to be operational in 1992, following the end of the Cold War; formally closed down in 1995 and was sold in 1997.

Counter-terrorism training area
A Planning Brief prepared by Salisbury District Council in 1999 concluded that options for re-use of the site, except for the former headquarters buildings, were limited owing to the presence of bat colonies and the possibility of contamination remaining from the storage of munitions.

Until 2015, the former RAF headquarters and some 55 acres (0.22 km2) of land in and near the ravine were used by a private company as a training area for counter-terrorism security and explosives handling.

Illicit 2017 dope farm


During the night of 22 February 2017, officers from the Wiltshire Police Dedicated Crime Team raided the bunker following information received that it had been converted for use as a cannabis farm. There are approximately 20 rooms in the building, split over two floors, each 200 feet long and 70 feet wide. Almost every room had been converted for the wholesale production of cannabis plants, and there was a large amount of evidence of previous crops. The farm was estimated to be able to produce £2m worth of cannabis per year using £250,000 worth of stolen electricity, with a crop of 4,000 plants every six weeks. The lighting equipment alone was estimated to have cost about £140,000. Three men admitted conspiracy to produce class B drugs and abstracting electricity. Charges of conspiracy to hold persons in slavery or servitude were initially made, but dropped due to lack of evidence. It took ten days to search and clear the site, which was said to be the biggest cannabis factory found in the south-west region.

Also see

 * 1) Noteworthy Air bases
 * UK war time regional seats of government