Pounds Yard, Portsmouth, UK

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Here are some of my pictures I took in July 1985 when I visited the famous Pounds Yard at Portsmouth. A veritable tank grave yard!

Among the thousands of tons of scrap steel were Churchill tanks, M10 and Sexton SP Guns, plus of course Universal Carriers. T16's were the most numerous (I think I counted at least a dozen), plus one Windsor. The latter was in a sand colour, probably meaning it was used in the Middle East after WW2.

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Pounds Yards is one of the major sources of surviving AFVs today. Many Sextons, M10s, Churchills, Centaur Dozers, M5A1 Stuarts and T16s seen today come from there. Luckily they were not all scrapped due to a slump in scrap steel prices and the fact that Harry Pounds likes/liked military vehicles - reportedly, of each type coming in his yard he kept the best. Also see this earlier thread: Carriers in Pounds shipyard

Some more pictures below: first pic is one I took back in 1985, it shows a huge stack of scrap iron with a Churchill tank sticking out - gives some perspective of the size of this scrapyard.




The next pic shows forum member Terry Johns crawling over a T16, third pic was also taken by terry in 1994, the last one I found on the internet.

[Hanno Spoelstra]

This Centaur Dozer was photographed in 1979 and acquired by the Cobbaton Combat collection:



“Pounds Yard: Roger Allen standing in front of one of fifty tanks Photo: The News archive”



Cross posting to related threads:
Carriers in Pounds shipyard: http://www.mapleleafup.net/forums/sh...ad.php?t=12110
Carrier grave yards: http://www.mapleleafup.net/forums/sh...907#post141907