Blast Pen 02

Blast Pen 2 from an Aerial Photograph of the Airfield from May 1947
Historic England
Blast Pen 2 from an Aerial Photograph of the Airfield from April 2020
Google Maps
Blast Pen 2 Front from July 1980 showing the outer arm and central arm end brickwork. Note the lack of a buttress on the centre arm of this pen, but an additional tie-bar still remains to the right of the central wall.
Steve Rickards
Blast Pen 2 Front from November 2020.
Neil Broughton
Blast Pen 2 Front from September 2018.
Neil Broughton
Blast Pen 2 Rear from May 2021.
Neil Broughton
Blast Pen 2 Rear from January 2021.
Neil Broughton
Blast Pen 2 Rear from February 2021 showing the sloping entry ramp.
Neil Broughton
Blast Pen 2 Left Hand Doorway from January 2021 showing three element lintel and bricked-up doorway.
Neil Broughton
Blast Pen 2 Right-Hand Doorway from July 1980.
Steve Rickards
Blast Pen 2 Right Hand Doorway from January 2021 showing three element lintel.
Neil Broughton
Blast Pen 2 Rear Doorway from January 2021 showing three element lintel and modern steel door.
Neil Broughton
Blast Pen 2 Right Arm from April 2021 showing the concrete capping on top of the earth revetment.
Neil Broughton
Blast Pen 2 Centre Arm from July 1980. This shows the original "stub" wall at the rear of the central arm to lessen the effect of a blast in one bay affecting the other. At a later date, the walk-through has been bricked in with the same bricks, tied in only on every few courses. The tie bar was a feature on both ends of this wall and the main central wall.
Steve Rickards
  • Pen 2 is the second most southerly of the pens on the eastern side of the airfield and faces west.
  • Today, the pen is complete apart from the front brick walls of each arm and the entire centre wall section.
  • The pen is of the smaller type found at Kenley, the original two bays would have been approximately 16.5m x 16.5m each.
  • The left front doorway has been bricked up and large steel doors secure the right and rear doorways.
  • All three doorways have three element lintels.
  • The rear retaining wall is of concrete construction, 50.4m long and 0.3m thick at the top. It has a slope of 10-12 degrees and is 1.55m tall at it’s highest point.
  • Access to the rear doorway is via a concrete slope faced by a single thickness brick cladding.
  • The interior shelter is of unknown construction, but is believed to be made of semi-circular corrugated iron sheets overpoured with concrete.
  • The front wall of the now missing centre section did not have a buttress, just a simple wall of one brick depth with various tie-bars added for strength.
  • Each bay has a soakaway drain situated in the interior corner where the side wall meets the rear. A drainage channel of 0.25m width runs the length of the side wall and leads into the drain.

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