Interpretation panels – RAF Beaulieu Bomb storage and preparation area
Author: Gareth Owen
If you cycled along the cycle route north from Beaulieu Heath through Hawkhill passing cycle post 344 you may have noticed a low brick wall and large earthen banks. Our new interpretation panel has been carefully fitted to this low wall part of one of the two bomb storage and loading areas that can be explored in this area.
This is one of a series of interpretation panels. You can find out about the rest here
For further reading and articles on Beaulieu Airfield please visit: Beaulieu Airfield Overview
In the bomb preparation area in Hawkhill woods fixed to the wall below the loading platform, are a number of metal rings. I’ve read somewhere in relation to another bomb preparation site at a different wartime airfield that these were called trammelling rings. They were set into the wall in order to facilitate the unloading and loading of bombs from lorries that delivered them to the bomb preparation area. Ropes would be tied to the rings and wrapped around each bomb which would, by the assistance of the ropes, ‘trammelled’ onto the loading platform by rolling. Can anyone confirm if this is true, was this the purpose of these rings? My thoughts were that they might be there in order to secure the bomb trolleys when they were being loaded. Any thoughts?