Looking at the ways that landscapes are psychologically charged by their history
Irish photographer Dara McGrath's Project Cleansweep -Beyond the Post-Military Landscape of the United Kingdom looks at sites used in the manufacture, storage, and disposal of chemical and biological weapons from World War I to the present day. Kimbolton Cambridgeshire 2012
Located approx 2 miles outside of Kimbolton Cambridgeshire. All photographs: Dara McGrath
Avonmouth Bristol 2012. This site was part of the National Smelting Works, which at one stage during WWI was the main centre of the production of mustard gas. In 2012 workers clearing the site for the building of a large ASDA supermarket distribution facility suffered from skin irritations and nosebleeds after discovering some buried munitions. The site today has been given the all clear and building has recommenced.
Harpur Hill Derbyshire 2011. In 1940, Maintenance Unit No. 28 was the biggest chemical weapons reception and storage depot in the UK. Up to 46,000 individual chemical weapons were stored on the 500-acre site and surrounding country lanes.
Norwich Norfolk 2015. In the 1963-64 Norwich Biological Trials, aircraft sprayed 120 pounds of zinc cadmium sulphate in an arc 15 miles west of town. Military scientists sampled the air throughout the region, sometimes disguised as traffic pollution monitors. The tests came to light in 2005, as local health officials reported esophageal cancer rates 50% higher than the national average.
RAF Yatesbury Wiltshire 2015. On the 18th of May 1954, zinc cadmium sulphate was sprayed from a low flying aircraft on the base to test the effects of a biological weapons attack on the U.K. Zinc cadmium sulphate was known even then to be a carcinogen. This test was one of over 750 military biological weapons field trials carried out between 1946-75. Re-development of the former air force base into luxury apartments commenced in 2007 but collapsed amid the financial crisis of 2008.
Stornoway Isle Of Lewis, Outer Hebrides 2013. Operation Cauldron was a series of biological weapons tests that involved spraying pneumonic plague bacilli on floating pontoons a half-mile offshore at Tolsa Head. Nearly 3,500 guinea pigs and 83 monkeys were subjected to this experiment during the summer of 1952. On the last day of the operation, a fishing vessel strayed into the exposure area. Two naval vessels tailed the trawler for 21 days, waiting for a distress call that could indicate a plague outbreak. No outbreak occurred, and almost all records of the incident were burnt.
Nancekuke Cornwall 2013. This was the main site for nerve gas production in the 1950s. Closing some 5 years later many of the contaminated buildings and equipment were dumped in quarries and mine shafts on and around the site, where they remain today. It is now an active military radar station, rumored to be part of the GCHQ, the British intelligence-gathering agency. Presently, the Nancekuke Remediation Project is ongoing to assess the site to determine what is actually buried there.
Chesil Beach, Lyme Bay Dorset 2016. The Dorset Biological Warfare Experiments were conducted in the south Dorset area between 1963 -75. They took place under the control of the Microbiological Research Establishment from Porton Down. Numbering scores of individual trials, where both live and dead bacteria were sprayed from ships off the coast and from the air onto large sections of the surrounding countryside.
Gruniard Island Scotland 2013. Located 1 mile off Gruinard Bay, between Gairloch and Ullapool on northwestern coast of Scotland. It was the site of a notorious biological warfare test by British military scientists from Porton Down in 1942. Eighty sheep were taken to the island and bombs filled with anthrax spores were exploded close to where selected groups were tethered. All were killed during the testing.
Wigg Island Merseyside 2013. Formerly know as the Randle Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) plant. It produced mustard gas from 1938 onwards. As production increased it soon became clear that a safer site was needed and the Rhydymwyn plant was constructed in 1939 to facilitate this. Production ended there in the 1960s. In 2002 part of the site was declared a local nature reserve, however large parts of the site are off limits and there are numerous sarcophagi like structures that have entombed the highly polluted parts of the site, indefinitely.
RAF Hullvington Wiltshire 2015. On the 22nd July 1954, Zinc cadmium sulphate was sprayed over the base by a low flying aircraft to simulate the effects of a biological weapons attack by the Eastern Bloc countries, as they possess similar dispersion properties to actual biological weapons. Today part of the site is still used for military parachute training and part of it is leased as a go-kart track.
Sandown Bay Isle of Wight 2014. In 1951, prior to the biological weapons test program, codenamed Operation Cauldron. A series of mock trials took place in Sandown Bay on the Isle of Wight. Scientists from Porton Down conducted a series of preliminary trials in order to test whether their proposed trial would work. Operation Cauldron that then took place off the Isle of Lewis in Scotland involved the releasing of biological agents, including pneumonic and bubonic plague, brucellosis and tularaemia on caged monkeys and guinea pigs on a floating pontoon.
Woodside Flintshire 2014. Located on a back road near the Rhydymwyn Valley Chemical Works. It was used as a spill over storage site to store bulk chemical weapons. The storage at Woodside was in 31 partially buried 55-ton tanks and 1-250 ton tanks. The site also became experimental as it was built as a model for other bases to be built around the country. These Forward Filling Bases would receive and store chemicals and were ready to arm it in quick response to any chemical attack on the UK.
Escrick North Yorkshire 2012. Operated by No. 80 Maintenance Unit and linked to the Forward Filing Depot at West Cottingwith and Riseley/Melchbourne Park and the Twinwood Air force base. Part of the site was used for underground storage of mustard gas munitions
At present the mustard gas site is at the edge of the Hollicarrs holiday home park on the Escrick Park Estate and is planted within a mixed deciduous and coniferous woodland and used by walkers, residents of the holiday home park and for equestrian activities.
Grangemouth Falkirk 2012. During WWII the airfield was used in the storage of bulk mustard gas. According to former crew stationed there, secret experiments involving the spraying of mustard gas took place. Today the site is occupied by INEOS. A giant petro-chemical complex that supplies most of the domestic fuel for Ireland and the UK
Shingle Street Suffolk 2013. Anthrax-laden bombs were tested in 1942-43 on a pebble beach outside this small coastal hamlet. The Photographer Dara McGrath has been selected by Martin Parr as winner of the Roscommon Arts Centre Contemporary Photography Award . The exhibition will open at Roscommon Arts Centre on April 13th as part of Photo Ireland Festival and Belfast Exposed on June 1st as part of Belfast Photo Festival
