6 Inch QF Magazine Cartridge Stores

There are three Cartridge Stores in the Magazine. Two of these are under the Emplacement and each serves one of the guns.

LEFT: In the two Cartridge Stores under the guns, the Cartridges were stored in containers on racks against the inner walls. There was room to store two rows of containers, one of 13 and the other of 12. The containers were stacked 3 high, giving a total of 150 containers in each of the stores. As 6 Inch QF Cartridges were supplied packed in containers of four, it is unlikely that two rows would have been be used. A crane running along tracks suspended from the ceiling was used to move containers. There was no lighting in the Cartridge Stores, so the men inside had to work in what little light coming in from nearby Lantern Recesses outside.

The Cartridges were passed out of Ammunition Hatches in the thick walls of the Cartridge Stores to the men working on the Band Lifts at each end of the Magazine. The walls were thickly built to minimise the effects of any explosion occurring in the Magazine. All of the Ammunition Hatches would have had steel doors fitted to them. The two ground level ones had sliding doors. These were used to pass containers of shells into the store.

Ventilation shaft from the inland Store

The ventilation shaft and the now vanished remains of the top of the shaft. A revolving cowl would have once topped this. The cowl would rotate in even a light breeze. Its design enabled it to pull air out from the magazine, creating an airflow inside.