Buffer Depots

StuartBr wrote:

My father was a retained firefighter in Surrey from the mid 1970's to mid '80s. They attended a major fire in a flour store, near Fairoaks airfield in Surrey (not sure of the year). This "apparently no-one knew was there" and was supposedly a Government buffer store. I'm not exactly sure of the location but believe it is opposite the entrance. Oldmaps.co.uk shows this in the early 1970's as a MOD Navy records store? My key memory of the incident was my father coming home in a real mess. The fire tunics of all the crews, they were the heavy black ones in those days, were a complete write-off. They couldn't get the wet flour paste out.

There certainly was a buffer depot at Fairoaks. The building is north of the A319 and was clearly labelled 'Home Office Buffer Depot' far from being 'not known about'. It can only have become a buffer depot post war as it consists of a T2 hangar which was built for and used by MAP for aircraft repair purposes (Beaufighters so I was told) and it still stands to this day and can be clearly seen on satellite photos. I was told by the airport manager (Fairoaks) that they tried to buy it for extra hangarage when the buffer depot closed back in the '80s but were 'outbid'.
When I was younger, my grandmother lived in Berkhamsted, Herts and my great aunt in Tring, which meant we often travelled to visit them via the what was the A41 but is now the A4251. Just past the Cow Roast at Dudswell there was a sign simply saying 'Buffer Depot' and pointing north; being young and interested in trains, I assumed it was a storage depot for railway buffer stops!
This one appears still to be standing too, about half a mile south of Tring Station between Beggars Lane and the Grand Union Canal; there appears to be a wharf on the canal side. There are 2 buildings, each with a 3 'ridge' roof longways.
Finally, the first time I visited Santa Pod (Podington Airfeld) in the mid '60s, a T2 hangar at the entrance was labelled as a buffer depot. It's gone now but I remember on one visit the hangar doors were open and you could see pallets of tins of something stacked inside it.

Has any one got any floorplans of the buffer coldstores?