CBC story here:
The tank was likely used for target practice by the British Army after WWII, in a range in the Lake Country.
May be the only surviving one of its particular production run.
I’ll bet that one gets restored. I wonder what kind of range had them firing small at a tank.
Sounds like your basic General Purpose Known Distance Range, used for everything from small arms to grenade launchers to mortars.
Where’s that !?!
That article says “Peak District”.
There is a “Lake District”, but no Lake Country.
Sorry, I misread it. Was thinking it was the Lake District.
Many temporary ranges had to be established, once the normal peacetime safety restrictions were relaxed, Much of the upland Sussex Downs was requisitioned for the purpose. Hard targets were required for antitank ranges and obsolete or beyond economic repair hulls were allocated for the purpose.
A couple of Covenanter tanks have been recovered from where they were buried in pits at the end of the war once the ranges were closed down. They are the sole remaining examples of the gun-tank variants.
A really neat discovery. I have this deluded picture of England as an industrial revolution run-amok land that long ago swallowed up any remote countryside.