Husbands Bosworth Airfield old RAF buildings

[Infraredd]

I've been here twice. There are still bits of this place I have yet to poke around in but this report covers a lot of what's left from the RAF days.
A very comprehensive history is here -
https://www.husbandsbosworth.info/index.php/historical-information/aerodrome-in-wwii
However there are hardly any pictures of this place from WW2 just some aerial shots of it in 1945 like this - http://media.iwm.org.uk/ciim5/168/943/large_000000.jpg
So I found 3 old blocks in a wood with some other earthworks first.
Now I'm no expert as to what was what and if anyone knows what each structure was
then please add your knowledge in the comments section.

Pictures

Saw these first

Insides are well knackered but seem to have been in private hands for quite a while - no ineptly rendered graff!

Well apart from these Beano out takes.....

They are used as storage for entertaining accessories & gardening supplies

Air raid (Anderson?) shelter

No idea - thought it might be anti aircraft

A low walled rectangular area?

Some kind of block/ guard House by the road

The Control Tower

All the ground floor rooms are full of pipes, tyres or junk but upstairs.....

Then over the road and into someones field is this

Now to my eyes this looks like an operations room with the table with all the little planes on - but I may be very wrong

It has lots of dark rooms off it and no stairs to the roof

And then there is this nearby

A few heaps of concrete like this

And this in a hut/ garage

There are even more pictures here......

https://www.flickr.com/photos/infraredd/sets/72157689230882804/with/27967082388/

Thanks for looking!

 

[HughieD]

Fantastic set. Love these kind of places and that watch tower is ace.

 

[BikinGlynn]

Thats nice I must check this out.
The low level remains look just like the ones hidden in the woods at Grafton, these are bizarrely marked on Grafton map as Officers Club?

 

[Malenis]

Nice one, I like this a lot!!

 

[Dirus_Strictus]

Very nice. However your 'Anderson' shelter ain't! The only shelter that can truly carry the name 'Anderson' is constructed from J shaped sheets of corrugated iron, bolted together to form a longish arch ( length depending how many occupants were to sit in it) and stood inverted in a two foot or so deep trench. The iron structure was then well covered in soil. Your precast concrete structure is of the ideal cross sectional shape, to resist the forces of an external explosion when suitably covered in a layer of shock absorbing soil. Depending on site location, if well covered with soil it may well have been a shelter; however if fitted with wide end door openings, may well have been used as a bomb fusing/assembly shelter or a machine gun/cannon magazine/belt filling area.

The comments re there being a Grafton 'Officer's Club', are all down to how the Americans and British regulated their Officers leisure/drinking time. We had the Officer's Mess and the NAAFI where drink was available, The mess in American terminology was purely for eating meals, the Officer's Club was where they drank and relaxed when not on duty.

 

[Infraredd]

well I did say I didn't know what things were but it is an air raid shelter because it is covered with earth and has the ventilation port at the far end -

Anderson's were the DIY public versions from your description. Have you any idea what the building with all the windowless rooms was? There is no evidence of plumbing but lots of evidence of high voltage wiring in conduits in cast trenches in the concrete flooring

 

[Mikeymutt]

I liked that.i love old world war two sites.its how I started this hobby.came across this site and it went from there..I love what your unique style adds to it.the shelters are normally a Stanton.there is lots around here.but one particular one still has the original hatch on it.in perfect working order.only one I have ever seen

 

[Infraredd]

Thanks Mikey - I grew up on a derelict railway line where the Station still had people living in it. It was all demolished a long time ago and a small industrial estate built that had Halcyon Models resident on it. They are also long gone and any of their original Alien models are highly valued. When I explored my first derelict building my kit consisted of my first pair of long trousers worn over my shorts, because as they were hand me downs, the zip was bust.........

 

[fluffy5518]

Lovely report Mr Red, a different take to normal too. I visited here a few years back on a whistle stop just to phot the tower but didn't realise there was too much more. The air raid shelter is a Stanton (they generally always are) and the last but one series of shots are of an operations block (ops block) complete with the frame of the PBX telephone exchange !! Like Mr Mutt, I too got into this hobby from pillboxes and airfields although my real hobby was always railways - until the age of the plastic train came along in the 1990's. !!

 

[jindivik]

Image 9 is a Blast Shelter, great images

 

[prettyvacant71]

Nice stalagmites