Taunton Supply Depot

The Somerset Heritage Centre was built in 2010 on a huge brownfield site in the Silk Mills area of Taunton in the parish of Norton Fitzwarren. The site is bounded by the main West Country railway line on the south, the present main Taunton to Wiveliscombe and Bampton road on the north, the Back Brook on the east and the former Taunton Cider Works, now being redeveloped for housing, on the west.

In 1940 the area was cleared and levelled to create the largest military supply depot in South-West England. It took only two months to build and was known as 3 Supply Reserve Depot and was in the care of the Royal Army Service Corps, later the Royal Army Ordnance Corps. The requirement was to stockpile war supplies including food, fuel, vehicle lubricant, disinfectants, and medical and hospital supplies. In peacetime these supplies would be turned over as needed to keep a stock in readiness for war. During the war the need was for supplies to be made available to forces overseas.

The depot opened in July 1940 only months before the terrible railway accident nearby that killed 26 people including 13 naval personnel on 4 November 1940. The depot had its own extensive railway sidings and eight enormous sheds some of them triple units, road transit sheds and four rail transit sheds with branch lines from the sidings. There were salvage, utensil and signal stores, garages, tyre repair workshops, a petrol station, headquarters and communications buildings, electricity substation, analyst’s workshop, gas defence and gas cleansing buildings, and coal stores. The site also had its own police station, medical and canteen facilities, sanitary blocks, first aid posts, five air raid shelters, five pump housesand c. 14 fire fighting tanks and was protected by trenches, at least seven sentry posts and two pillboxes. Goods were brought by rail and the wagons unloaded into transit sheds. The stores were then taken by conveyors to pallets on trailers which were towed into the large stores. Outside the main area were cold stores.[1]

In 1942 it became the United States Army’s General Depot G 50and an aerial photograph shows camouflage paint and netting on the buildings. Shortly afterwards a tented prisoner of war camp was created in the north of the site across the main road. It was about a quarter of a mile wide surrounded by a perimeter fence with sentry towers.

In 1945 the depot became a British Army supply depot again producing ration packs. It was smaller than the original site the western area having been used for housing as Norton Fitzwarren village expanded but some of the housing was for military families. It was probably at this depot that John McFee of Taunton died on 13 December 1946 from injuries sustained through being accidentally crushed by a stack of packing cases. During the 1950s British soldiers all over the world were supplied with ration packs made up at the Taunton depot. A film of the work of the RASC made by Pathe for the army and published in 1957 devotes its last frames to scenes from the Taunton depot showing supplies being loaded into one of the large warehouses while a locomotive draws wagons behind.[2]

However, in the 1960s there was pressure for change and depots were closed leaving Taunton the only survivor after 1963. A new laboratory was built for food research and testing and the depot was said to be the best equipped to handle the thousands of tons of food needed by the army, four fifths of it tinned. The depot was also supplying the Royal Air Force but still had spare capacity as it was designed for the greater needs of wartime. In 1965 the depot was transferred to the Royal Army Ordnance Corps and was run by four officers but its closure was already planned and its work scaled down. The government wanted the Navy to take over the supply role through its post-war base at Botley near Southampton and other depots. That was bad news for Norton Fitzwarren as the depot employed 213 men and women, many disabled and a 132 over 50, a substantial part of the village workforce.

In March 1966 Edward du Cann, then MP for Taunton, made an impassioned plea to the House of Commons to save the depot pointing out that staff costs were lower as in the Taunton area labourers earned £10 18s a week whereas at Southampton it would be more and that bonuses were often paid bringing the weekly wage to £20. Also he pointed out that the packing area alone at the Taunton depot covered 230,000 square feet, as much as the Navy’s entire Botley depot.[3] However, the government went ahead with the proposed closure in October 1966.

Following closure the supply depot became the Taunton Trading Estate; the enormous sheds, some of them triple units, providing cheap warehousing and storage for buses and lorries. In the early 21st century pressure for redevelopment led to the destruction and clearance of most of the site to create Langford Mead; a large business and trading estate, c. 500 new homes, green areas and a new road system to bypass Norton Fitzwarren. By 2010 only about four wartime stores survived and a few other structures. One of the earliest new arrivals on the site was the Somerset Heritage Centre.

copyright

Mary SirautPage 1Somerset Reference

[1] Most of these buildings have gone without trace only a few large sheds survive but are not accessible to the public; however a surviving sentry post can be seen on the old Silk Mills Level Crossing approach, which is now a footpath. Details of the buildings, mostly demolished, were recorded by Chris Webster for the Somerset Heritage Environment record, site number 44543.

[2]

[3] Hansard, 9 March 1966.