Chain Home Radar

Wow, Ian, that is a cracker! A Chain Home site must have been quite a sight up close – I’ve seen the ex-Canewdon tower at Great Baddow, so I have a fair idea how tall they were. Thanks for posting that.

Adrian

PS My favourite radar installation – the infamous Blue Circle!

Adrian,

No problem – I realise how much of a fringe interest this is. That combined with my anal attention to detail means I am a bit of a stickler for accuracy. I hope I didn’t cause offence. Anyway, here’s a photo of the transmitter towers at Drone Hill, with the T Block visible in the middle. An amazing photo taken in 1942!

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Many thanks for your input on my remarks, Ian. Radar is not high on my list of (too many!) interests, but I am happy to be educated!

Adrian

I have been tempted to buy this book, Watching the Skies: History of Ground Radar for the Defence of the United Kingdom by the Royal Air Force from 1946 to 1975

There is not much out there in print about post-war radar, but I would be very wary of this book which contains a great number of errors. There is a reference to the AAOR at Frodsham, with an image, in the very good book, Cold War: Building for Nuclear Confrontation 1946-1989 by Wayne D Cocroft and Roger JC Thomas.

Page 162 of Watching the Skies mentions the following: “The first Orange Yeoman prototype equipment was eventually completed but its location at Frodsham had already been made obsolete by the abandoning of a point defence system. It was completed in its original, unmodified form, mainly because a delay in the siting of the second prototype allowed time to complete the development more satisfactorily on the first one, and it was used for several years for training. An attempt was made to interest the Civil Aviation Air Traffic Control Experimental Unit in both the radar and the data handling equipment since it could have provided a radar facility to Northern ATC Centre at Preston which would not otherwise be available for several years. It was very clear, however, that the civil authorities could not possibly afford to operate and maintain such an elaborate facility even if the whole installation were to be given to them. By the middle of 1959, therefore, all the equipment at Frodsham had been dismantled, most of it to be used elsewhere at RRE, at the contractors, or incorporated into the second prototype.”

There is no index, so it can be very difficult to find information, but this is the only mention I can see of Frodsham.

RadarArchive, thanks for posting the additional photos – two very different perspectives; IIRC the house at the base of the mast was up for sale when I visited the first time, I wonder how the mast was described in the sales bumph?

I have been tempted to buy this book, mainly for info on ORANGE YEOMAN radar trials, as the actual test site is/was near to me in Frodsham,Cheshire based in the AAOR there, I dont know how much depth it has about CHAIN HOME though.

Watching the Skies: History of Ground Radar for the Defence of the United Kingdom by the Royal Air Force from 1946 to 1975

I came across both of those in my searches, but as you suggest, have some detail but only as a part of the book, as with a number of other publications. So far the Bragg book seems to be the best option. But there’s plenty of information to follow up here.

Two other books to check out…
Bawdsey – Birth of the beam…..a history of the station has a couple of chapters on the radar work.
and Orfordness – Secret Site….both by Suffolk author Gordon Kinsey.
I don’t have the latter book in my library, so I can’t say exactly what’s in it.

TO, yes those are tall towers!

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Many thanks RadarArchive – until I’d been out to photograph the site in autumn 2012, I hadn’t appreciated how the remaining aerial mast dominated the landscape.

I was over at Wickenby the other week and on a crisp winters day looking over to the Wolds there it was, acting as a silent reminder to our World War II defences!! 🙂

have you looked at Bawdsey Radar Trust?

It’s a pity their last remaining tower was demolished about ten years back

Moggy

TO, it’s not quite the same, but here you go.

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Thanks for posting that image RadarArchive – I wonder whether anyone from the ‘Riggers School’ has any similar photographs taken more recently?

have you looked at Bawdsey Radar Trust? they have a number of open days throughout the year and they may be able to assist in your request

Or how about a photo of Stenigot as it was?

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Thank you TO – I’ll be back to you tomorrow….?

Charlie I was going to send you a PM, but you don’t seem to be registered – if it helps I could send you some photographs of what remains at Stenigot.

Adrian,

The site bar was originally the Transmitter Block. The concrete bases for the four steel transmitter towers can be seen in a line beside it. The Receiver Site, with Receiver Block, is elsewhere on the site.

A Chain Home radar was constructed at Drone Hill, north of Coldingham in Berwickshire.

As one of the links says, there’s now a caravan and camp site at Drone Hill – we stayed a night there a few years ago, unaware of what it had been, and it’s quite surreal camping surrounded by pillboxes and obviously WW2 stuff. I suspect with a site map, you could spend a very fruitful day tracing what was where. I suspect that what is now the site bar and dancehall was the Ops block.

Adrian

Ah, OK, thanks.