Site Records

Inchindown Fuel Depot - Secondary Portal

This is the Secondary (North) Portal. Much smaller than the Secondary Portal. It proved to be entirely unsecured on my first visit - no lock, the door could simply be pulled open. On my most recent visit, in May 2006, it had, like the Secondary Portal, been effectively secured with a strong Abus padlock. This portal seems to lack the valves of the Secondary Portal, I presume it served for construction, ventilation, and emergency access.

The Secondary (North) Portal (hiding behind a tree):

Closer view of the portal - no gate, a short unlined tunnel leads to a steel door:

A closer view of the door, and now we can see there's a (locked) door to the left too - this gives access to a small chamber containing a large ventilation fan:

Opening the door and passing within - the duct which leads to the aforementioned ventilation fan is clearly visible:

The entrance chamber, looking back to daylight outside:

The tunnel, from the entrance chamber - running away into the distance. Photographed using the Catford treatment - 30s exposure, running around with a flashgun firing it off manually. This tunnel is a lot smaller than the main tunnel, and a lot longer:

After a long straight featureless stretch, the concrete lining is seen to end ahead, and the bare rock tunnel bends to the left::

Looking back to daylight from the end of the lined section. I counted it as 250 paces in from the entrance at this point:

Looking back at the end of the lined section:

Looking forward from the end of the lined section - a gentle bend, and some roof supports:

Looking round the bend, the tunnel continues straight and unlined for a considerable distance. There's a small blind alcove on the right wall a little distance along:

Interesting fungal growth on one of the roof supports:

Just round the bend is the first of the alcove giving access to the tanks:

Another view of the alcove:

A closer view yet. A concrete plug seals the end of one of the storage tanks. Four large pipes lead through, their covers removed. The pipes seem to be around six feet long. Whilst photography was impossible, shining a good light through the pipes gave a view inside the tank, which appeared enormous - The 'Portsdown Tunnels' site gives dimensions of 800 feet long by 35 feet in diameter for the tanks there, and these appear to be on a similar scale.

'MCMXLI' translates to 1941:

Another Catford job, looking down the length of the tank access gallery:

It ends after five tanks with a right-angle bend:

Round the bend, a further shorter length of unlined tunnel ends in the access to the 6th and final tank. This was, for reasons unknown, built considerably shorter than the other five tanks, also it was never used - it's never had oil in it:

A closer look at the access to the final tank. You'll note, in the lower right, a trolley with a curved bed. The object sitting on top of it, which somewhat resembles those things used to take pizzas out of old-fashioned pizza ovens, is the means of access to the tank. It has wheels on the bottom and a long handle; one lies on it, and is pushed through the pipe (which is six to eight feet long) into the tank. This is obviously a two-man job; since I was alone, I couldn't get into the tank that way. I tried crawling along the pipe, but it would have resulted in getting bloody dirty, and it was a very tight fit - only a couple of inches either side of my shoulders, would have required very strenuous wriggling. No thanks, not in such a remote spot, on my own...

For some reason there's a fair bit of graffitti here, even though most of the system is free of it. Dates are from late 80's through to 2003 or so.

Although I couldn't get through to the tanks myself, I did use the 'slide' to try to send my camera through to get some pictures. Put the camera on self-timer, set exposure to 30s, put it on the end of the slide, press the shutter, and gently pass the slide to the end of the pipe. Then when the shutter opens, jump to another pipe and spend thirty seconds waving a torch held at arms length, trying to illuminate as much of the tank as possible:

The results are not exciting, given more time I could have done a little better. The following are 1600 ASA, 30s at f5.6, 17mm, on a D70. Then processed in Photoshop to allow you to see anything at all!!:

Another attempt. Difficult to judge scale I know, but you can *just* see enough in the following image to get an idea of the inside of a tank. The end wall is, at a rough guess, 500-600ft away, the tank seems to be roughly 40ft high by 30ft wide. The steel frames in the bottom are interesting. They appear to support small pipes. I have no proof as to their function, but guessing I would say they are heaters; the bunker oil stored in these tanks was, I believe, a very thick 'treacle' kind of oil, and probably needed to be heated to allow it to flow properly:

Words and images © 2006 Michael J. Ross