# Shakespeare County Raceway / RAF Long Marston June 2019



## Jazzy_Jefferson (May 13, 2020)

Hi all,

I visited last summer and it was one of my more enjoyable explores with quite a few features which of course are either racing or airfield related.
Access was a piece of piss, I hear there's a very angry man who lives on site but I guess I got lucky. The sun was setting making for some wonderful colours, however constantly changing light conditions made things a little tricky. 
It's a fairly well known site already, there's loads of reports out there so I'll skip on the history to a certain degree. Here's some snippets from wiki:

"In 1954 R.A.F. Long Marston was decommissioned from public use by the Air Ministry, and the site was returned to the possession of the private landowners of the property in 1939. It was renamed 'Long Marston Airfield', and its facilities were made use of for the next six decades as a site for motor-sports events, and a variety of other commercial enterprises. "

"Shakespeare County Raceway became a permanent drag racing facility in 1980 when it was known as 'Long Marston Raceway'.

Situated on the former RAF Long Marston station which became Long Marston Airfield, drag racing events occurred on the site sporadically since the early 1970s.
In 1990 the track became known as 'Avon Park Raceway', advertised as "Spectacular drag racing for cars and bikes at the fastest track outside the USA", In 2008 it finally became Shakespeare County Raceway Ltd.
SCR is generally considered to be Britain's 'second' dragstrip after Santa Pod Raceway.

In late 2017, planning applications were submitted by Cala to build initially 400 homes on the site, followed eventually by a further 3,100 to be known as Marston Mead Garden Village.
Local newspaper Stratford Herald reported in December 2017 that a Stratford local council document established that potentially up to £100 million funding from the developer Cala would need to be assured, to be invested widely into infrastructure improvements, including roads, public transport, schools and doctors' surgeries.
Their official website now states the raceway closed in 2018."

Album on Flickr - https://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/albums/72157714288590258






























Note - I've no idea why where or how this arrived on site. Any ideas?




















































































































To be continued...


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## Jazzy_Jefferson (May 13, 2020)

Thanks for looking.


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## explorinwithkier (May 14, 2020)

amazing photos!! do you know when/ if building work has started?


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## BikinGlynn (May 14, 2020)

Cracking set of pics that some lovely light going on there


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## BikinGlynn (May 14, 2020)

explorinwithkier said:


> amazing photos!! do you know when/ if building work has started?



Was wondering how far this has got too? I know the shackleton has gone!


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## Jazzy_Jefferson (May 14, 2020)

explorinwithkier said:


> amazing photos!! do you know when/ if building work has started?



No idea, at the time of the visit there were no signs of redevelopment.


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## Jazzy_Jefferson (May 14, 2020)

BikinGlynn said:


> Was wondering how far this has got too? I know the shackleton has gone!



I've conflicting information... I'm told the Shackleton is still on site, but the Percival "Gate Guardian" has now gone. In any case, I'm not 100% sure.


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