Reports - Control Tower - Urban Exploration
Reports - Control Tower
HMS Osprey / RNAS Portland
Where? Portland, Dorset. Comments 9. Posted 30 April 2009.
HMS Osprey was one of the Navy's helicopter airfields. It closed in 1999. Most of the base has been demolished. An HM Coastguard heliport remains, as does the old main building. This contained the control tower, operations room, met office and communications centre. There are plans to turn this building into a hotel.
RAF Bodney
Where? Norfolk. Comments 10. Posted 9 September 2007.
One of the great things about this website (that sounds egotistical, but I shall continue) is the amount of feedback I receive from visitors. Most leave memories of their times at the places I visit. Some leave compliments. And very very rarely I get tip-offs about locations. "Steve" left one such comment regarding RAF Bodney and sent a photo of the control tower there. I had a spare morning so decided to visit...
RAF Shepherds Grove
Where? Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. Comments 53. Posted 12 August 2006.
RAF Shepherds Grove is located on the outskirts of the sleepy Suffolk village of Stanton. It was built during WW2 as an airfield for bombers. During the Cold War in the 1950's the USAF took over and based jet fighters there. When the jet fighters left, part of the base was used as a launch site for Thor nuclear missles.
The site closed in 1966 and some of the base is now an industrial estate.
April 2007 update - The control tower, fire station and industrial units have now been flattened.
RAF West Raynham
Where? Swaffham, Norfolk. Comments 434. Posted 23 August 2006.
RAF West Raynham is in Norfolk, near a town called Swaffham. It is seriously in the middle of nowhere, and was quite hard to find. It closed in 1994, and at the end of 2005 was put up for auction. There are loads of houses there and the local MP wants them to be used as residential housing again. This will be quite a task - 11 years of non-use have taken their toll.
I didn't really look round the housing areas, instead concentrating my trip on the cool military stuff. That said, I didn't manage to explore everything in the time I was there. There is a Bloodhound Missile launch site here (it was over the other side of the airfield) but I decided to leave when a scary dog started following me...
