After seeing the three reports on this place pop up on here, I had to go for a mooch around.
There's lots to see on the site. But I was major disappointed with how my photos came out. So I apologise now for the fuzziness of the pics! Like any good explorer I blamed my lens. After trying my normal zoom, and my 50mm, they were both pin sharp so it must be a lens issue. I think 300 explores had just taken its toll, and the sharpness has just dropped off. In fact I was actually so p**sed off with it, I got rid of the lens later that day!
The History:
This is one of those RAF bases that seemed to flit between between RAF and USAF. The US first came to the site in 1942, just after they'd formally stuck their oar in. The camp had to rapidly expand, so told the adjoining school that they had 3 weeks to find new facilities as they were taking over!
The Americans were gone by '45, but were back again in '52 for the Cold War. Their presence fluctuated, and records show that there were 800 US troops here back in the summer of '69.
Then in 1975 Bohemian Rhapsody came out. Oh, and they built a huge nuclear bunker under the base as cold war tensions grew to fever pitch (nothing to do with Bohemian Rhapsody, although could have been Rod Stewarts 'Sailing' spending 4 weeks at #1). The bunker boasted 21,000 square feet, and housed all of the high tech gear needed to launch and guide nuclear missiles.
Between 1985 - 1985 a peace camp sat outside the base, campaigning against US missiles being bought to the UK.
The base closed down in its purely military capacity around 2005. There was a number of educational facilities on the site which stayed active, allowing the last class of students to graduate in 2007.
The site was sold to Taylor Wimpey in 2011, with planning permission to build 441 houses on the site. In March 2012 they applied for planning permission to fill in the bunker, and destroy years of unique heritage for a couple of extra houses. This got delayed and delayed, while English Heritage managed to slip in a Listing order, meaning the bunker is now Grade II listed, and cannot be touched. Win!
The Explore:
Visited with Priority 7, far too early on a Sunday morning. Due to lack of traffic we'd got there way too early and were in about an hour before sunrise. We holed up in the community centre for an hour shooting the breeze, and letting all of social media know we were 'chillaxing' - you can get good 3G in there.
The sun came up and we started exploring the massive site, heading straight for the bunker first - but it wasn't to be today. So we headed to the next nearest building which happened to be the sports centre.
Entrance foyer
Main Gym: (apologies for the blurriness, my lens is well on its way out and it was virtually pitch black in here!) I was also distracted by the positioning of that girder right over a window opening...
Small Gym
Selfie:
Heading out of the sports centre, there are two large student accommodation blocks:
Kitchen:
Hairdressers calling card:
Other bits of paperwork found around the accomodation:
The site has been used for Police firearms training, and theres still a few blank casings scattered around:
Next we went to the actual schooling building themselves. There was obviously a leaning towards the sciences as there were more labs than any other type of room.
We had a mooch around the community centre, and the bowling ally we decided to hit the smaller ancillary buildings.
The bank:
Thanks for looking, time to go. Thanks for reading!
There's lots to see on the site. But I was major disappointed with how my photos came out. So I apologise now for the fuzziness of the pics! Like any good explorer I blamed my lens. After trying my normal zoom, and my 50mm, they were both pin sharp so it must be a lens issue. I think 300 explores had just taken its toll, and the sharpness has just dropped off. In fact I was actually so p**sed off with it, I got rid of the lens later that day!
The History:
This is one of those RAF bases that seemed to flit between between RAF and USAF. The US first came to the site in 1942, just after they'd formally stuck their oar in. The camp had to rapidly expand, so told the adjoining school that they had 3 weeks to find new facilities as they were taking over!
The Americans were gone by '45, but were back again in '52 for the Cold War. Their presence fluctuated, and records show that there were 800 US troops here back in the summer of '69.
Then in 1975 Bohemian Rhapsody came out. Oh, and they built a huge nuclear bunker under the base as cold war tensions grew to fever pitch (nothing to do with Bohemian Rhapsody, although could have been Rod Stewarts 'Sailing' spending 4 weeks at #1). The bunker boasted 21,000 square feet, and housed all of the high tech gear needed to launch and guide nuclear missiles.
Between 1985 - 1985 a peace camp sat outside the base, campaigning against US missiles being bought to the UK.
The base closed down in its purely military capacity around 2005. There was a number of educational facilities on the site which stayed active, allowing the last class of students to graduate in 2007.
The site was sold to Taylor Wimpey in 2011, with planning permission to build 441 houses on the site. In March 2012 they applied for planning permission to fill in the bunker, and destroy years of unique heritage for a couple of extra houses. This got delayed and delayed, while English Heritage managed to slip in a Listing order, meaning the bunker is now Grade II listed, and cannot be touched. Win!
The Explore:
Visited with Priority 7, far too early on a Sunday morning. Due to lack of traffic we'd got there way too early and were in about an hour before sunrise. We holed up in the community centre for an hour shooting the breeze, and letting all of social media know we were 'chillaxing' - you can get good 3G in there.
The sun came up and we started exploring the massive site, heading straight for the bunker first - but it wasn't to be today. So we headed to the next nearest building which happened to be the sports centre.
Entrance foyer
Main Gym: (apologies for the blurriness, my lens is well on its way out and it was virtually pitch black in here!) I was also distracted by the positioning of that girder right over a window opening...
Small Gym
Selfie:
Heading out of the sports centre, there are two large student accommodation blocks:
Kitchen:
Hairdressers calling card:
Other bits of paperwork found around the accomodation:
The site has been used for Police firearms training, and theres still a few blank casings scattered around:
Next we went to the actual schooling building themselves. There was obviously a leaning towards the sciences as there were more labs than any other type of room.
We had a mooch around the community centre, and the bowling ally we decided to hit the smaller ancillary buildings.
The bank:
Thanks for looking, time to go. Thanks for reading!
