PROJECT CLESNSWEEP

Harpur Hill, Derbyshire, 2012Former Maintenance Unit (M.U.) No.28 is located 6 miles south east of Buxton in Derbyshire. In 1940 this was the biggest chemical weapons reception and storage (phosgene and mustard gas) depot in the United KingdomAt its busiest, it is estimated that there was up to 46,000 individual chemical weapon bombs stored on the site of approx 500 acres and on the surrounding country lanesAfter the war wholesale burning of munitions including chemical weapons was undertaken by ‘X’ Stations, the RAF’s division that decommissioned captured chemical weaponsThis proved unreliable as it rendered a lot of the surrounding landscape void of vegetation.The Harpur Hill site closed as a military facility in 1960Since then the underground storage tunnels have been used to store cheese, bonded storage of alcohol and the growing of mushroomsThere is also a toxic quarry lake where ordnance testing took place during WWII, that locals know as ‘The Blue Lagoon’ and which the local council has identified with a ph level of 11.
-Beyond the Post-Military Landscape of the United Kingdom

Project Cleansweep takes its name from a Ministry of Defence (MoD) report issued in 2011 identifying sites in the UK where tens of thousands of tonnes of mustard gas, phosgene and other lethal chemicals were, since World War 1, made, processed, stored, burned and dumped in England, Wales and Scotland. To this day such sites remain problematic even when they have been returned to civilian usage

The MoD released details of Operation Cleansweep in 2011 to provide “reassurance” that residual contamination at UK sites did not pose a risk to human health or the environment. In all 14 sites were identified in this report. Subsequent research uncovered a further 56+ sites in the UK where chemical and biological weapons were once manufactured, stored, and tested. These sites are now almost all returned to civilian use, and are now within the landscape as local bathing spots, public parks, pathways, deer sanctuaries, industrial estates and petro-chemical facilities amongst others.

They are post militarized environments and infrastructure, and a reminder still of what was a sustained military land grab in the 20th century, when over 371,000 hectares of the British landmass was reserved and appropriated for military use.

About the author
Dara McGrath is an Irish based photographer. He is a postgraduate of photography and visual arts practice for the Institute of Art, Design and Technology Dublin. For this work he was recently a recipient of a Solas Award for Photography 2015.

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