Chop Gate Royal Observer Corps Post
I acquired the post in April 2010 and have since then been restoring it as a museum to commemorate the fantastic work the Corps did in our country. I must stress that when open days are not on; nothing of value is left inside the bunker. The Bunker, Aircraft Post and Outbuildings are all securely locked, alarmed and protected by CCTV, which is monitored in the village. Please do not trespass on the land.
In July 1940, the Air Ministry, who was at the time in charge of the ROC, commissioned Chop Gate Aircraft Post. It was to be a part of 9 Group (York) and was Post Q.4. The Post was made of local stone to fit in with the surroundings on the North Yorkshire Moors National Park and built by local labourers. It was manned continuously day and night during the Second World War, and played a part in the tracking of the plane carrying notorious Nazi, Rudolf Hess. In 1966, the post was transferred to 23 Group Durham and became post M2. In 1981 when the alphanumerical system was phased out, it became simply, Durham 23post.
The Corps won its spurs during the Battle of Britain and in his despatch, Lord Dowding said, “ It is important to note that, at this time the Observer Corps constituted the whole means of tracking enemy raids once they had crossed the coastline, their work throughout was quite invaluable, without it, air raid warning systems could not have been operated and inland interceptions would rarely have been made. In recognition of the invaluable work done by the Observer Corps, an announcement was made in the House of Commons on 9 April 1941 that, His Majesty King George Vl had granted the Corps the title “Royal”.
On Saturday 10 May 1941, ROC posts in the York, Durham, Galashiels and Glasgow Groups were responsible for tracking and reporting what transpired to be the arrival of Rudolph Hess. The aircraft was first heard and reported by York post Q4 Chop Gate and then Durham post A2 Embleton. It was then seen as a silhouette in the moonlight by post A3 Chatton and correctly identified as a ME110. The controller at No 13 Group Fighter Command refused to accept that it was a ME110 because of its limited range and suggested that it must be a Dornier 17. The aircraft continued on its westerly course and was seen briefly by the observers at F2 Jedburgh and G1 Ashkirk who reported it as a ME110, the track was lost for a time over the unobserved forest of Ettrick. The aircraft was next seen and reported by post G3 West Kilbride as a ME110, a few minutes later post H2 Eaglesham reported seeing someone bale out, the aircraft crashed close to the Eaglesham post and the rest is history.
At the cessation of hostilities, the ROC was stood down in May 1945, but was re-formed in January 1947 at the beginning of the cold war. As it had done throughout World War 2, the Corps continued with the aircraft reporting and tracking role.
On 11 April 1950, having been established by Royal Warrant, King George Vl became the Corps’ first Air Commodore-in-Chief. On the occasion of the coronation in June 1953, her Majesty Queen Elizabeth ll assumed the appointment of Air Commodore-in-Chief of the Royal Observer Corps.
In 1955, the Corps was given the nuclear reporting role by the Home Office, a task that grew quickly, although command of the Corps still remained with the Royal Air Force. With considerable improvement in ground radar however, together with the heights at which modern aircraft could fly, Fighter Command decided in 1968 that the services of the Royal Observer Corps were no longer required and operational control was passed to the Home Office. The Home Office now funded 90% of the running costs of the Corps, the Royal Air Force continued to fund 10%. Having expanded rapidly, the Corps now had 1,559 underground monitoring posts and 31 Group Controls (operations rooms) manned by 17,500 part-time volunteers and a small cadre of whole-time officers and civilian staff. As a direct result of the Home Defence Review in 1968, the number of underground monitoring posts was reduced from 1,559 to 872, and the Group Controls from 31 to 25. Administrative command however, remained with the Royal Air Force and a serving Air Commodore continued as Commandant ROC; the Corps enjoyed Command status.
The lessening ‘threat’ to the United Kingdom resulted in the stand-down of the bulk of the ROCin September 1991. The decision was taken however by MOD to retain the NRC element of the Corps, in order to continue providing a NBC service for all three Services. Sixteen NBC cells were retained and manned by 240 other ranks and 16 spare-time officers under the control of HQ Royal Observer Corps. HQROC comprised two whole-time officers and two MOD civilian staff. Having gone full circle, the Corps was once again fully funded and controlled by the Royal Air Force and became part of Headquarters No 11 Group. The Senior Air Staff Officer with his other hat on became Commandant ROC. Although the Corps undertook the NBC roll successfully, the ever diminishing threat to the UK continued apace and the decision was taken to stand down the remaining element of the Royal Observer Corps with effect 31 December 1995.
Chop Gate as found in 2008.
And then in March 2010
The first thing that was done was to temporarilly secure the post, so we came up with a contraption that looked somewhat like this.
Much work was then done following it. The hatch was extensively restored. It was suffering from serious rust issues and the hasps had been cut. New ones were installed and the hatch was primed.
The Monitoring Room looked somewhat like this:
It was tidied, lots of rubbish removed and it then looked like this
Work going on outside:
Next up came painting, which took ages. Paint inside the post took months to dry and had to be blasted by industrial heaters as our open day was fast approaching and the walls were still soaking! Concrete repairs were carried out to the hatch where it had been damaged by thieves.
Outside may look smart but inside was another story!!
However, the hatch looked amazing!
Soon the long grass and weeds needed to be cut back which did take quite a while!
Inside was soon glossed and emulsioned.
Shelves which were donated by the owner of a local post that was in a very bad state were glossed and installed.
Now that the paint had dried, it was the fun part. Starting to kit it out with stuff that would actually make it look like an ROC Post. A former Observer who lives in the village popped along to have a look.
Next job was to source beds and other items. All of which were donated however we travelled all over to get
them!
New vents which had been specially made were reinstalled as the old ones were rotting.
August 2010 soon arrived and we were ready for our first open day.
Then the end of 2010 was marked with stripping down the post as severe winters last for months up here!
The next open day was planned for May 2011, which would give us enough time to get the exterior paint red-done and other general maintenance.
We then went on to have an other open day in August 2011. This was by far the best attended as we had approx. 300 people visit throughout the day which is a fantastic number. It is for this reason that I didn’t manage to take any photos at all on the day. Someone did take some but I am unsure as to what happened to them. You do get the general idea though.
This year, we have several aims, several new bits of kit, and a main aim of restoring the aircraft post with its original folding roof, with help from Travis Perkins (hopefully).
We are also in talks with people about the restoration of Durham 60 Post, Castleton, which is nearby on the moors.
There are many people that ought to be thanked.
Triplesix, for continuous help and support with restoration and running of the open days.
Industry, for loaning certain items of equipment to us which we have yet been unable to source.
Landowners, for allowing us to take many items and furniture from posts on their land.
Finally, YOU. We rely really on donations from you as the upkeep cost for things like paint etc etc is very expensive. We could not do what we do without the generous donations you give and the continuous support on open days.
Hope you see you on our next, open day, and many thanks for reading!
Krypton
PS. I shall leave you with a few archive photos of Chop Gate.
And,
A video used with permission of BB with our siren in action. You may have to click the picture to be taken to it depending on your browser and flash settings.
Thanks