# RAF Saltby, Leicestershire, February 2019



## HughieD (Feb 20, 2019)

*1. The History*
RAF Saltby is an ex-World War II airfield in Leicestershire, located in-between Melton Mowbray and Grantham. Its eastern end pushes it across the border into Lincolnshire by a few hundred metres. It opened in 1941 as a grass strip and surrounding support buildings until a year later when it was up-graded to Class A airfield standards with three converging concrete runways. It was used by both the RAF and the US Army Air Forces with RAF Vickers Wellingtons first to fly out of it. It was used primarily as a transport airfield and closed after the war and kept in reserve until 1955. The ground support station was constructed largely of Nissen huts and included mess facilities, a chapel, hospital and armoury and bombsite storage amongst other buildings. An ammunition dump was located outside of the perimeter track and surrounded by large dirt mounds and concrete storage pens. At its peak it accommodated up to 2100 staff members and boasted five hangars which were used to store 32 Horse gliders in 1943. 

On its release from military use in 1955, much of the airfield was returned to agriculture. Today, a large amount of the airfield is intact, including almost the entire main runway remains, utilised by the Buckminster Gliding Club for gliding, motor gliding and glider aerobatics.

*2. The Explore*
Seem to be on a bit of a WWII roll at the moment. A revisit from when I covered it a few years ago. This former RAF base is pretty much off the radar and few reports crop up. It might be down to the fact it isn’t a spectacular site and the bits that remain are dispersed over quite a large area. A lot of key buildings have been demolished (such as the old control tower) but there’s still enough to hold your attention for a couple of hours or so. I still have vivid memories of when I was a child cycling out to the base and there being more higher-slung buildings still standing than there currently is. The most striking thing about the site today is perhaps the number of intact and pretty pristine stanton shelters dotted over the area.

*3. The Photos*
Let’s start with the base’s water purification plant. Completely hidden from the road in a coppice in the middle of a field and barely visible from Google Maps, this bit of the base gets overlooked. Nothing amazing but some quite interesting shapes:


img0962 by HughieDW, on Flickr


img0959 by HughieDW, on Flickr


img0958 by HughieDW, on Flickr


img0957 by HughieDW, on Flickr


img0955 by HughieDW, on Flickr


img0952 by HughieDW, on Flickr

Nature has reclaimed the crumbling red-brick structures:


img0950 by HughieDW, on Flickr


img0949 by HughieDW, on Flickr


img0947 by HughieDW, on Flickr


img0951 by HughieDW, on Flickr

Further up the road is a number of demoed buildings but many Stanton shelters remain:


img0965bw by HughieDW, on Flickr


img0966 by HughieDW, on Flickr


img0969 by HughieDW, on Flickr


img0973 by HughieDW, on Flickr


img0974 by HughieDW, on Flickr

This one wasn’t quite so lucky:

img0978 by HughieDW, on Flickr

One of a number of remaining RAF pattern blast shelters:


img0979 by HughieDW, on Flickr


img0981 by HughieDW, on Flickr


img0985 by HughieDW, on Flickr

An old water tower:


img7262_1 by HughieDW, on Flickr

Not too sure what this is:


img7258_1 by HughieDW, on Flickr

On the inside:



img0988 by HughieDW, on Flickr

More building bases:


img0989 by HughieDW, on Flickr

…and blast shelters:


img0991 by HughieDW, on Flickr

And more Stanton shelters:


img7273_1 by HughieDW, on Flickr


img7268_1 by HughieDW, on Flickr


img8631_1 by HughieDW, on Flickr


img8625_1 by HughieDW, on Flickr


img8624_1 by HughieDW, on Flickr


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## BikinGlynn (Feb 21, 2019)

Very nice, cant beat a bit of ww2 brick porn.
I see the blast shelters at most raf sites, as I right in assuming that they never had a roof but were just a sort of dug out?


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## HughieD (Feb 21, 2019)

BikinGlynn said:


> Very nice, cant beat a bit of ww2 brick porn.
> I see the blast shelters at most raf sites, as I right in assuming that they never had a roof but were just a sort of dug out?



Cheers mate - yes - basically roofless trenches to shelter you from any blast rather than a direct hit!


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## krela (Feb 22, 2019)

HughieD said:


> Cheers mate - yes - basically roofless trenches to shelter you from any blast rather than a direct hit!



Really designed to protect from shrapnel and strafing. Keep your head down!

The water tower(s) would have had nissen huts attached.


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## Dirus_Strictus (Feb 24, 2019)

krela said:


> Really designed to protect from shrapnel and strafing. Keep your head down!



Experience had shown that when roofed blast shelters were constructed; unless you provided a really complicated entrance that directed any outside blast away from the enclosed shelter spaces, the roofed spaces magnified the blast pressure effects on the personnel sheltering there. In leaving them roofless, the blast pressure was allowed to dissipate outwards and upwards into the atmosphere - better a ringing head and a little temporary deafness, than crushed internal organs!


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