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What are the concrete structures at Stacey Bank (below Damflask) ?

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I`ve had an interesting E Mail from someone who says that, whilst on a school field trip, he was told the structure was a mounting for suspending cables to protect the dam from aircraft attacks during WW2.

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I was talking to someone last week who remembers the cables, funny I should read this now! She also said that they had stationed a "decoy" company with tents etc in the valley; and a barrage balloon anchored, which used to frequently blow away.

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I think what you have found here is an ROC (Royal Observer Corps) structure. The ROC would stand in a small fortified structure and telephone back information such as an approximate count, the direction and speed of enemy aircraft and what kind they were. It may once have had a roof and it was probably corrugated iron, and it might have had corrugated iron walls with big windows in at one time. The concrete was to duck behind if you got shot at or bombed, and being thick it's easier to leave it there when you don't need it any more than it is to knock down. There might have been an undercroft too to house a small office; a lot of these just got concreted in after the war.

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I think what you have found here is an ROC (Royal Observer Corps) structure. The ROC would stand in a small fortified structure and telephone back information such as an approximate count, the direction and speed of enemy aircraft and what kind they were. It may once have had a roof and it was probably corrugated iron, and it might have had corrugated iron walls with big windows in at one time. The concrete was to duck behind if you got shot at or bombed, and being thick it's easier to leave it there when you don't need it any more than it is to knock down. There might have been an undercroft too to house a small office; a lot of these just got concreted in after the war.

 

That sounds more interesting than a flood sluice (with the earth barriers removed), but, I fear, the flood sluice is probably the most likely......

Apart from anything else I`d have thought that anchorage points for anti-aircraft cables (or Royal Observer Corps bases) would be more likely above the dam wall (rather than below it).

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i think the structures were for anchoring Barrage Balloons to protect the dam from bombers.

Edited by 5iron2

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i think the structures were for anchoring Barrage Balloons to protect the dam from bombers.

 

Interesting idea. I don't recall seeing any holes in which anything could be anchored. I will try and get back out that way and investigate.

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Interesting idea. I don't recall seeing any holes in which anything could be anchored. I will try and get back out that way and investigate.

 

the blocks will just be the foundations and heavy weight to hold them down. The anchoring steel structure will be long gone.

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the blocks will just be the foundations and heavy weight to hold them down. The anchoring steel structure will be long gone.

 

That I understand, but surely there would be some sort of holes on the concrete foundation, in which the structrure was anchored. Also, it doesn't explain the earth banks at each side of said structure.

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That I understand, but surely there would be some sort of holes on the concrete foundation, in which the structrure was anchored. Also, it doesn't explain the earth banks at each side of said structure.

 

But there aren`t any earth banks either side now, though I accept there may once have been.

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But there aren`t any earth banks either side now, though I accept there may once have been.

 

True. There must be someone who knows what they are :huh:

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We`ve just come back from a walk around Storrs Bridge bleow Damflask.

Does anyone know what the large concrete tank like structure (just below the dam itself) is for and is it still used ?

From a distance it looks like a castle !

 

Even more unusual is the concrete structure in the field about 100yds further on. We couldn`t work out what that was for at all. It looked like it had slots for a gate to be dropped into, like on canal locks, but there was no wall either side of it, so, curiouser and curiouser.....

 

http://www.aerialsandtv.com/favouritepictures.html#WhatIsThis

 

Finally, what`s happening with all those old industrial buildings which look like they`ve been empty for years ?

 

I had an interesting E Mail sent to me at work concerning these structures :

 

Regarding your mystery structures just below Dam Flask.

The large concrete tank was part of an early 1900's scheme to augment compensation water for the factories down the valley. The SCWW were contracted to allow a certain amount of water down the river but wanted to retain more of the available supplies for drinking water. They built a pumping station on the Don at Blackburn Meadows and a b****y long pipeline through Sheffield and up the valley to that tank. In times of drought they would pump river water around in a loop to satisfy the mill owners. The tank was for balancing purposes.

I remember the wires over the dam. they were strung from huge guyed lattice towers balanced on a big steel ball like TX towers. A wire spanned the dam with weighted lines strung from it.

Other dams in the district had the same arrangement.

No idea about the other thing.

Alan.

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They built a pumping station on the Don at Blackburn Meadows and a b****y long pipeline through Sheffield and up the valley to that tank. In times of drought they would pump river water around in a loop to satisfy the mill owners.

 

Wow, that is the most wasteful way of supplying water power I have ever heard of.

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