Cheshire airfields

Hi

I just found out a bit more information from someone who served at 61MU just after the war and I thought I would share it with you.

“At the time I was at 61 MU there were no aircraft on the sites. There were various sites and it was akin to an immennse warehouse. All uniforms, clothing and sundries were stocked on one site. Other sites had lots of spares of widely different uses. Examples are all the various sizes of rivets, screws, nuts and bolts used on aircraft. There were radio, radar, communicating equipment.etc. Tyres for planes were stocked. The thing was, during the war years, lots of items had got mixed up and scattered around so we were sent there for a big re-organisation and tidying up. It was stock taking on a huge scale If you need any more details let me know. We slept on the camp at Wilmslow and went to the sites in vehicles (lorries), every day”

S.

Hi Schneider. I hope that you and others, sometimes check in with this forum because I have just found this site, after spending some time searching for info and I notice these are old posts.
I am hoping to get more info about this Handforth RAF Unit, as I lived very close to this base for several years until 1967.
My friends and I frequented this location, on weekends and summer holidays from school. I was 14yrs old when I left Handforth.
What I remember about this place ‘under the bridge’ as we called it, as we had to enter these fields and abandoned RAF buildings, under a railway bridge, from Spath Lane, Handforth.
Fences still remained around the buildings but were torn in many places and weeds and grass were taking over.
The buildings themselves consisted of many shapes and sizes. Some were very tall, hanger-like buildings, with huge chains on pulleys, that hung from the ceiling to almost the floor, which we used to swing on from time to time.
The tall buildings were full of ceiling to floor windows but now the glass was shattered everywhere, crunching under foot.
There were all kinds of interesting metal containers, old machinery and large ‘bays’ (like mechanic bays) in these tall buildings too, if I remember correctly.
There was also a wide trail, covered with black gravel or cinders of somekind, that ran from the base, parallel to the railway tracks, towards (Hall Road I believe.) This trail was called the ‘tank track.’
I see from one of the above posts that this particular RAF Unit, repaired tanks, so that makes sense now. I often wondered if there had really been tanks in the area!
Right at the end and centre of this tank track, at Hall Road, there was a concrete slab, about the size of a house, which seemed to be the remains of something else.
If anyone knows of anyone that knows more info about this Unit (Schneider: if you could put me in touch with the person who you quote in your last post) I would be very grateful.
Thanks all! 😎

Hi

I just found out a bit more information from someone who served at 61MU just after the war and I thought I would share it with you.

“At the time I was at 61 MU there were no aircraft on the sites. There were various sites and it was akin to an immennse warehouse. All uniforms, clothing and sundries were stocked on one site. Other sites had lots of spares of widely different uses. Examples are all the various sizes of rivets, screws, nuts and bolts used on aircraft. There were radio, radar, communicating equipment.etc. Tyres for planes were stocked. The thing was, during the war years, lots of items had got mixed up and scattered around so we were sent there for a big re-organisation and tidying up. It was stock taking on a huge scale If you need any more details let me know. We slept on the camp at Wilmslow and went to the sites in vehicles (lorries), every day”

S.

There are still wooden prop-blades used as field fence posts in the hills to the north-east of Macclesfield,some of them still black with the yellow tips still visible.They are locally reputed to be from Wellingtons.As far as I remember,RAF Handforth was always just a M.U. and never an airfield.You are correct in stating that RAF Wilmslow was a WRAF camp and had a Spitfire as a gate-guard in the 1950s.

The Spitfire was EP120. 🙂

Cheshire Airfields

Thanks for all the fantastic info, I had totally forgotten abouth the name, we used to call it by the nickname of the M1.

I have just foung a good site on Google with a lot more information about RAF Wilmslow including some old photgraphs:

http://www.wilmslow.org.uk/wilmslow/raf/wilmslow-raf.html

Thanks for help.

They used to repair tanks there and it was existant until about 1985 when they started to turn it into and extention of Stanley green industrial estate.

There are still wooden prop-blades used as field fence posts in the hills to the north-east of Macclesfield,some of them still black with the yellow tips still visible.They are locally reputed to be from Wellingtons.As far as I remember,RAF Handforth was always just a M.U. and never an airfield.You are correct in stating that RAF Wilmslow was a WRAF camp and had a Spitfire as a gate-guard in the 1950s.

I too remember these ruins although they were always refered to as “the MU” I don’t think they were ever airfields
As I remember it there were three such sites relatively close together, the first I knew was a small one off Outwood Road in Heald Green, now houses. The other was on the other side of the old A34 and is now covered by the new A34 just to the north of where the road crosses the railway between Cheadle Hulme and Handforth. Then there was the one I think you’re talking about which I think was RAF Handford which the last time I heard of it had the Civil Service pay office as the last remaining part. There was also a RAF Wilmslow which I think was a WRAF basic training camp.
The closeness of all these sites may suggest that they were all part of the same camp. I like you would love to know more.
Now just to get the denizens of this site excited. Growing up in Heald Green in the early sixties I also remember the farmers fields having fences made from propellor blades (Rotol?). These were a wooden core covered in a plastic type material. The Farmer had planted them hub down and knailed barbed wire to them.
I’m ashamed to say that like most of the local kids I took delight in setting fire to the plastic coating on the blades.