HomeThe StoryInterviewsPhotographsResources
Dereliction and Redevelopment
Occasional use of the site
The Depot was not entirely abandoned when the gates were finally closed. The deserted lane outside the perimeter fence became popular with dog walkers, ramblers, cyclists and learner drivers. Ponies were ridden along the verge and bird watchers scanned the site with binoculars. One Guide, who was a drummer in the Ruddington Scout & Guide Band looked forward to band practice, especially in the summer months.
“When the light nights came we went to practice on Thursday evenings and Sunday mornings just outside the locked Main Gate of the Depot. Between the Loughborough Road and the gate there was a large open space, so that we could parade up and down playing our instruments at full volume, without causing any disturbance to anybody. When we finished on Sunday mornings the Army Cadets took over and did their drill. They put us to shame.”
Permission was granted for youth organisations such as the Army Cadets to go onto the site for training and to carry out exercises. Young people on the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme sometimes bivouacked on the site. The Honorary Curator of the Village Museum received a telephone call one day from the West Midlands. The caller said:
“My son and a friend who are in the Air Training Corps, (the R.A.F. version of the Army Cadets), camped on the Depot site in Ruddington last weekend as part of a proficiency test. They are now writing up an account of their activities, and are required to give a brief history of the military site they used as a base. Can you help?”
No relevant documents or photographs could be found among local archives because of the secrecy which had always surrounded the site. The history of Ruddington O.S.D.D. Depot existed only in the memories of those who worked there, or lived nearby.
One event aroused a storm of protest as the minute book of Ruddington Parish Council records:
“18.3.86 The Eastwood and District Motor Club had held a rally on Sunday 16th March 1986 on the Depot. The noise of vehicles participating in this rally was, it was considered by many residents, to be an unwarranted and unnecessary intrusion into their privacy on a Sunday. Councillors and the Clerk had been overwhelmed by the number of complaints received.”
The site and the buildings were used as a background for a number of television programmes, either as a backdrop or at close range. Police dog training took place there and police forces also practised riot control and firearms training. The longest period of continuous use by the largest number of people occurred in 1985. The strictest security measures were in operation, but people living nearby had their suspicions. So did an alert 15-year-old Scout:
“One evening a man walked into our weekly Scout meeting at the Scout Hut and introduced himself as a Scout Leader from Cornwall who was working in the area for the time being. He came again on two or three occasions and joined in our activities before he returned home. By this time the Miners Strike was over and our visitor from Cornwall wrote and confirmed my suspicions. He was a police constable, drafted in with many others from several rural areas, and billeted at the Depot. They went by bus each day to keep flying pickets from entering Nottinghamshire where several pits remained open, operated by members of the Democratic Union of Mineworkers who were not on strike.”
The Story > Chapter 9 > Section 9.02