Sopley RAF Camp, Dorset.

Called in unplanned with the lovely Vanessa for a bit of ad hoc exploring!

RAF Sopley was a WWII station, codenamed Starlight based near the coast just on the Hampshire / Dorset border near Christchurch. The radar station was opened in 1940 and in 1959 became an air traffic control station for civil air traffic eventually closing in 1974. Today, a lot of the buildings are used for light industrial use and is known as Merryfield Park.



The main entrance in 1950's.



One of the Ops rooms during the second world war.



A temporary radar antenna.

















A history of Sopley with some great photos can be found here:-

http://www.subbrit.org.uk/rsg/sites/s/sopley/index.html

Great report & pics.

Thanks for post, I have often wondered what Sopley looked like as it was the last recorded communication point between air and ground before my uncles's unfortunate fatal crash at Tiverton in 1961 flying a Hi-Low training excercise from an RAF base in Germany.

Hi
The temporary radar aerial you picture was far from temporary. It was a Radar Type 80. A long range search radar with a range out to 200+ miles.
They took 4-5 months to build up and commission and a similar time to take down. I worked on these rigs back in the '60s.

Great site by the way

great shots

It started life as a GCI radar, also known as a Happidrome after a radio show that was popular at the time. Not many of these left now.