HMS Royal Arthur.

HMS Royal Arthur was and assessment camp for new recruits joining the Royal Navy during WWII, originaly the camp was based at Skegness on a Butlins camp but later relocated to Corsham in Wiltshire sometime in 1946.

The camp was used to assess and kit out the recruits before they where relocated to there placements for active duty, later it became a leadership training school for Petty Officers.

HMS Royal Arthur is interestingly enough almost next door to Site 3 or the Burlington Bunker as its known, the huge secret underground MOD Nuclear Bunker where the country would of been ran from in the event of Nuclear War.

The Royal Navy finally left HMS Royal Arthur in 1993 and since then it has remained derelict and been severely vandalized, almost every building in the site is covered in Grafitti although some of which is extremeley impressive.

The site is also used for Police dog training from time to time, apart from that though the camp just sits deteriorating and rotting away.

It has made local headlines on numerous occassions due to the state its in and the vandalism that frequently happens on there, there have been rumors about transforming the site into a retirement village but so far this has not happened.

Our visit here was a bit of a last minute decision, but with a few other explores in the area and the fact this place sits deep in the heart of Corsham it was and absoloute must to see.

We really did not know what to expect of this place, we did have high hopes but they soon dwindled, when we arrived it was dark and quite late, the gates wide open and and eerie silence to the place, we carried on in and decided to quickly explore the place before bedding down for the night with the intentions of continuing the explore at first light.

When light came though it was a disappointment to say the very least.

Its not quite what we expected, and quite frankly shocked us that it was so wrecked considering it sits right next to one of the most sensative Ministry Of Defence sites in the country.

Saying that though it was worth the effort even if it was a bit of a disappointment! after seeing the majority of the buildings where all in the same condition we didnt even bother to look in half of them as we knew what to expect, that and the fact that the majority of MOD sites are stripped bare when there decomissionied.

I think the only thing that made up for our disappointment was the history of the place and its location apart from that it wasnt really that great.