# RAF Hornchurch July 2010



## Weeto

Took a little trip to the former site of RAF Hornchurch today as i obviously dont have much else to do, anyway the history.

RAF Hornchurch was an airfield in the south of Hornchurch in what is now the London Borough of Havering. Known as Sutton's Farm during the First World War, it occupied 90 acres (360,000 m2) of the farm of the same name and was situated 14 miles (22.5 km) east north-east of Charing Cross. Although the airfield closed shortly after the end of World War I, the land was requisitioned in 1923 due to the expansion of the Royal Air Force and it re-opened as a much larger fighter station in 1928. The airfield was ideally located in bomb alley to cover both London and the Thames corridor from German air attacks. It was a key air force installation between both wars and in to the jet age, closing in 1962. Following a period of gravel extraction and infilling with rubbish in the 1970s, the airfield was extensively landscaped to create Hornchurch Country Park, with work commencing in 1980. Most of the former administrative and technical areas, including the two Type A and one Type C hangars, were levelled in the 1960s and the area is now a housing estate.
Now the good stuff
A number of pillboxes, command bunkers and gun positions, together with the largest number of surviving Tett Turrets in England, still exist within the boundaries of the former airfield and can be seen on the Eastern edge of the country park.

Dispersal Pen, now a car park and with the anti air shelter full of concrete.













Compass setting point.




Type 22 Pillbox (S0009947).








Type 22 Pillbox (S0009946).








Tett Turrets (S0009942).
















Type 22 Pillbox (S0009945).












And one more Type 22 Pillbox (S0009944) half buried and wrongly identified on Hornchurches web site as a battle HQ.








Wouldnt be an RAF Base without a plane.




Its a fair old size withe the defences spread out a bit and not as chaved up as i was expecting for a country park, slightly dissapointed as i couldnt find the site of a 4.5" gun emplacement thats ment to be there too.


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## philpridd

Thanks,Weeto,suprised there is anything left at all.Still makes an intreresting report though.Phil.
Tet turrets dont seem to offer much protection, are they part buried?


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## hydealfred

Some nice stuff remaining there - like the compass point


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## Weeto

philpridd said:


> Tet turrets dont seem to offer much protection, are they part buried?


Yes mate its basically the top part you can see in the pics, it sits ontop of a 4 foot concrete cylinder, and can be hand cranked i believe.
Couple of down sides tho as they have no roof is flooding and someone bowling hand grenades in on you.
Theres a diagram here that'l give you a better idea.
http://s134542708.websitehome.co.uk/pillboxes/assets/images/db_images/db_tettturret1.jpg


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## rusty-signs

Excuse my ignorance, but what do the 's' numbers next to the pill box types relate to?


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## krela

rusty-signs said:


> Excuse my ignorance, but what do the 's' numbers next to the pill box types relate to?



O/S grid references...


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## Weeto

> O/S grid references...


Nearly right there the Defence of Britain codes for each item.


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## Seahorse

"Hands up anybody feeling suicidal."

"Me, sarge. I'm really depressed."

"Right, get in that Tett Turret. The Germans will be here any minute now. You should last about 10 seconds."


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## cptpies

Only seven Tetts are identified in the DoB and only three of those are positively identified as Tetts. The other four have no turret and the descriptions could also suggest they are AA gun pits. They weren't popular for the reasons Seahorse has eloquently outlined. 

Grenade practice anyone?


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## Weeto

The thing that gets me is that the entrance is so tight and they were designed for a Bren gun team of two men?!!!!! crazy:icon_evil


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## outkast

Dont be so quick to dissmiss the pillbox as not being the BHQ, some BHQs were two story pillboxs with the lower level being below ground, I have looked in that pillbox but its nearly full of rubish so hard to tell if it went down any lower.

Theres another tett at hornchurch wich is not on the DOB database, my mate spotted it in the undergrowth.

Dave.


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## Weeto

outkast said:


> Dont be so quick to dissmiss the pillbox as not being the BHQ, some BHQs were two story pillboxs with the lower level being below ground, I have looked in that pillbox but its nearly full of rubish so hard to tell if it went down any lower.
> 
> Theres another tett at hornchurch wich is not on the DOB database, my mate spotted it in the undergrowth.
> 
> Dave.


Im not normally so dismissive of things but the only source i found saying it is a battle HQ is RAF Hornchurch project web site, the DOB project and the country parks own map show it as a pillbox, thats why iv labelled it as such.
In the pics there are two Tetts one was previously in another location, and was cleared and moved to this location i beleive by a team from "Two men in a Trench".
Cptpies you available to verify this please mate?


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## Munchh

Well that concrete mixer sure as hell took a massive dump down the shelter, no respect at all 

Enjoyed your post Weeto, nice work mate.


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## jonney

Weeto said:


> In the pics there are two Tetts one was previously in another location, and was cleared and moved to this location i beleive by a team from "Two men in a Trench".
> Cptpies you available to verify this please mate?



I saw that program and if I remember rightly didn't they excavate the 2 story pillbox as well because the entrance was burried


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## jonney

here's the link to the program http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/battleofbritain/11402.shtml

the turrets and the pillbox start about 35 mins in


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## cptpies

The DoB reference is for both turrets at Hornchurch, If there is a third I'd love to know it's whereabouts. 

Outkast is correct in saying BHQ's aren't necessarily the standard 110084/41 type. There are a fair few that were pillboxes pressed into the role as is or adapted for the purpose. I know of another that is a Stanton shelter with a standard BHQ cupola plonked on top. There are also a number of sites that have more than one, the second being a fallback position like the one I just mentioned.


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## cptpies

Having just watched the link (thanks Jonney) I see there's another three there. The schematic map shown of their locations was frankly a bit shi1te so if anyone local could do a recce I'd be grateful.


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## Weeto

Cheers jonney, cant believe the secret tunnel to the pillbox wonder where the other end of it is. your right pies that map is crap however it looks like the one at the top and the one at the bottom are fairly close to the two pillboxes in those locations, looks like il be going back for another look soon then , a proper plan would be good but then again i may make my own i think.


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## outkast

Weeto said:


> Cheers jonney, cant believe the secret tunnel to the pillbox wonder where the other end of it is. your right pies that map is crap however it looks like the one at the top and the one at the bottom are fairly close to the two pillboxes in those locations, looks like il be going back for another look soon then , a proper plan would be good but then again i may make my own i think.



Weeto if you go back the other tett is in undergrowth not far from the BHQ/pillbox, if you have the pillbox on your left and walk down the path eastwards keep an eye on the undergrowth to the right theres one in there, we went in the winter so was a bit easier to see, but we only just caught site of it.

Dave


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## cptpies

Weeto said:


> looks like il be going back for another look soon then , a proper plan would be good but then again i may make my own i think.



Thanks Weeto. Approximate NGR's will do fine, most of the original DoB NGR's are off by a bit anyway.


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## Weeto

outkast said:


> Weeto if you go back the other tett is in undergrowth not far from the BHQ/pillbox, if you have the pillbox on your left and walk down the path eastwards keep an eye on the undergrowth to the right theres one in there, we went in the winter so was a bit easier to see, but we only just caught site of it.
> 
> Dave


Cheers dave thats most appreciated, il try and get someone else to come with me this time two sets of eyes better than one, iv also got a rough idea of where to look for the other two and iv found mention to an air raid shelter too.

James


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## ninjastyle

man i used to ride my bike round there when i was a kid. i recognise that carpark with the curbstones/low walls at the left. never realised all that history about it! also remember someone saying that there was an old explosives factory of some kind in the havering area that got blown up. and iirc there was a house that was in a feild or something near the old site of it? was a very long time ago and my memory is pretty shocking.
thanks for the info man!


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