RAF Barton Hall (RAF Longley Lane) | |
---|---|
Near Barton, Lancashire in England | |
Coordinates | 53°49′09″N002°43′42″W / 53.81917°N 2.72833°W |
Type | Royal Air Force station / Headquarters |
Site information | |
Owner | Air Ministry |
Operator | Royal Air Force |
Site history | |
Built | 1786 |
In use | 1940-1975 |
Battles/wars | Second World War |
Garrison information | |
Occupants | No. 9 Group RAF |
Royal Air Force Barton Hall or more simply RAF Barton Hall is a former Royal Air Force station situated between the villages of Barton and Broughton, near Preston, Lancashire, England.
Barton Hall, which replaced an old manor house, was built for the Shuttleworth family in about 1750. [1] In 1939 part of the estate was requisitioned for military use. During the Second World War, the Operations Centre of No. 9 Group RAF was housed there in three buildings (Operations Room, Filter Room and Communications Centre), which were partially buried for protection, in a similar way to buildings for No. 10 Group RAF at RAF Box, No. 11 Group RAF at RAF Uxbridge, No. 12 Group RAF at RAF Watnall, No. 13 Group RAF at RAF Newcastle and No. 14 Group RAF at Raigmore House in Inverness. [2]
Operations room ( 53°49′23″N2°42′04″W / 53.823°N 2.701°W )
The operations room, responsible for directing RAF aircraft in the No. 9 Group area, was located in a bunker on Langley Lane, Goosnargh, 1 mile (2 km) east of Barton Hall. [2] After the war the Royal Observer Corps 21 Group Headquarters and the Western Sector Control of the United Kingdom Warning and Monitoring Organisation took over the bunker. In the bunker was the standby national control of the famous Four-minute warning air raid warning system for the UK. The ROC and UKWMO were disbanded between 1991 and 1995 and the bunker was closed. [3]
Filter room ( 53°49′12″N2°41′10″W / 53.820°N 2.686°W )
The Filter room, responsible for filtering large quantities of intelligence on enemy activity before it was passed to the operations room, was located in a bunker on the south side of Whittingham Lane, a little further east. [2] The Filter room contained a map table showing the British coast from north Wales through western Scotland. One of the WAAF officers in the Barton Hall Filter Room, Eileen Younghusband recorded her experiences there in "One Woman's War." [4]
Communications room ( 53°49′08″N2°43′41″W / 53.819°N 2.728°W )
The communications room, responsible for accommodating all the communications equipment, was located on Brass Pan Lane, north of Broughton. [5] The communications bunker is currently used to store farm machinery. [5]
After the war, Barton Hall itself was the site of the Preston Air Traffic Control Centre which provided the Area Control service between N52.30 and N55.00, with London ATCC (at Heathrow and later West Drayton) to the South and Scottish ATCC (at Prestwick) to the North. The unit closed in 1975, its task having been absorbed by London ATCC and Manchester Sub-centre situated at Manchester Airport. [6]
ROTOR was an elaborate air defence radar system built by the British Government in the early 1950s to counter possible attack by Soviet bombers. To get it operational as quickly as possible, it was initially made up primarily of WWII-era systems, notably the original Chain Home radars for the early warning role, and the AMES Type 7 for plotting and interception control. Data from these stations was sent to a network of control stations, mostly built underground, using an extensive telephone and telex network.
RAF Uxbridge was a Royal Air Force (RAF) station in Uxbridge, within the London Borough of Hillingdon, occupying a 44.6-hectare (110-acre) site that originally belonged to the Hillingdon House estate. The British Government purchased the estate in 1915, three years before the founding of the RAF. Until the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, the station was open to the public.
No. 9 Group RAF was a group of the Royal Air Force, which existed over two separate periods, initially at the end of the First World War, and latterly during the Second World War when its role was air defence.
Goosnargh is a village and civil parish in the City of Preston district of Lancashire, England.
The Hack Green Secret Nuclear Bunker is a former government-owned nuclear bunker located at Hack Green, Cheshire, England.
RAF Rudloe Manor, formerly RAF Box, was a Royal Air Force station north-east of Bath, England, between the settlements of Box and Corsham, in Wiltshire. It was one of several military installations in the area and covered three dispersed sites. Parts of the site are now used by Defence Digital within the MoD Corsham complex; other areas are vacant and some have been sold, including the 17th-century manor house, Rudloe Manor.
Whittingham is a civil parish in the City of Preston, Lancashire, England. The parish measures 4 miles (6 km) east-to-west, from the outskirts of Longridge to the outskirts of Broughton, but only 1 mile (1½ km) north-to-south. Its population was 2,189 in 2001, reducing to 2,027 at the time of the 2011 Census. The village of Goosnargh is at its centre.
The Kelvedon Hatch Secret Nuclear Bunker at Kelvedon Hatch, in the Borough of Brentwood in the English county of Essex, is a large underground bunker maintained during the Cold War as a potential regional government headquarters. Since being decommissioned in 1992, the bunker has been open to the public as a tourist attraction, with a museum focusing on its Cold War history.
Barnton Quarry is a disused stone quarry in Corstorphine Hill, Clermiston, Edinburgh, Scotland. The site was later used as a military command centre, and is now being converted into a museum.
RAF Watnall was the operational headquarters of No. 12 Group, RAF Fighter Command at Watnall in Nottinghamshire, England.
Remote Radar Head Trimingham or RRH Trimingham is a former TPS-77 radar station situated on the coast in the English county of Norfolk. The site is located on the coast road between Cromer and Mundesley, 1 kilometre east of the village of Trimingham but the activity has now moved to RRH Neatishead due to the threat from coastal erosion. The radar station was a satellite station of RAF Neatishead. This radar station was controlled and maintained by a section of Radar Technicians and Operators and supported by a team of Ground Engineers. Trimingham provided extensive coverage of the East coast of the United Kingdom and helped contribute to the recognised air picture and defence of the United Kingdom. The type 93 became operational on the site in April 1997.
Royal Air Force Holmpton or more simply RAF Holmpton is a former Royal Air Force Cold War era nuclear bunker that was built in the 1950s as an early warning radar station as part of the ROTOR Radar Defence Programme. Located just south of the village of Holmpton, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England, RAF Holmpton remained a part of the Defence Estate right up to 8 December 2014 when it was sold into private ownership after 62 years of military service.
The Dowding system was the world's first wide-area ground-controlled interception network, controlling the airspace across the United Kingdom from northern Scotland to the southern coast of England. It used a widespread dedicated land-line telephone network to rapidly collect information from Chain Home (CH) radar stations and the Royal Observer Corps (ROC) in order to build a single image of the entire UK airspace and then direct defensive interceptor aircraft and anti-aircraft artillery against enemy targets. The system was built by the Royal Air Force just before the start of World War II, and proved decisive in the Battle of Britain.
RAF Blakelaw was a Royal Air Force station which acted as headquarters for No.13 Group during the Second World War and which was located in Blakelaw, Northumberland.
The Battle of Britain Bunker is an underground operations room at RAF Uxbridge, formerly used by No. 11 Group Fighter Command during the Second World War. Fighter aircraft operations were controlled from there throughout the War but most notably during the Battle of Britain and on D-Day. Today it is run by Hillingdon Council as a heritage attraction with attached museum. The museum was opened in 1985, with an above ground visitor centre opened in March 2018.
Eileen Muriel Younghusband, BEM was a filter officer in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force in World War II. She worked in the filter room, a top-level British air defence hub which assessed radar reports in order to give air raid warnings. Later, while posted to Belgium, she was part of a team of mathematicians who alerted Allied forces to the location of V-2 rocket launch sites.
A Filter Room was part of RAF Fighter Command's radar defence system in Britain during the Second World War. The filter room at Fighter Command Headquarters lay at the top of the Dowding system - the integrated ground-controlled interception network that covered the United Kingdom. The operations were considered secret and, as such, were covered by the Official Secrets Act.
Royal Air Force Portland or more simply RAF Portland is a former Royal Air Force and ROTOR radar station on the Isle of Portland, Dorset, England. Located close to the Verne Citadel and East Cliff, the station was established in the 1950s as part of a nationwide air defence radar system built by the British Government during the Cold War. The station became a scheduled monument in 2004 and is now the site of the community farm, Fancy's Family Farm.
Raigmore House was a country house in Raigmore, Inverness.
The Filter Bunker Raigmore Inverness is the one remaining of a group of three subterranean bunkers situated around Raigmore in Inverness, Scotland. All three bunkers were constructed around 1940 for use by the Royal Air Force to process RADAR signals from Chain Home masts. The three bunkers in the cluster were Operations, Filter and Command. It is a B listed building because of its historic interest.