Monument record 8630/1/12 - WWII dispersed Site 5 (Living Site 1), Silverstone Airfield

A Second World War Royal Air Force camp is visible on historic aerial photographs and was mapped as part of Historic England’s North Buckinghamshire Aerial Investigation and Mapping project.

{2} Concrete footings and tracks for Silverstone aerodrome service buildings. Some of these sites are probably bomb stores.

{4-8} A Second World War Royal Air Force accommodation camp is visible on historic aerial photographs and was mapped as part of Historic England’s North Buckinghamshire Aerial Investigation and Mapping project. Located within The Straights woodland and centred at SP 65996 42704, Site 5 (Living Site 1) was one of 10 satellite RAF camps for military personnel serving at adjacent RAF Silverstone, an operational wartime military airfield. Aerial photographs taken in spring 1942 show the airfield under construction at that time and the camp had yet to be created. By 1943 the airfield was operational. Site 5 was one of four camps within The Straights woodland that provided accommodation and mess services for Silverstone airfield’s male members of the Royal Air Force and comprised a sentry box that guarded an junction of access roads from which a network of paths lead to airmens’ barrack buildings, officers’ quarters, sergeants’ quarters (mess), ablution and latrine blocks and a M&E plinth (a mechanical and electrical junction/transformer box). By 1973, the woodland has been cleared and aerial photographs show that all the buildings have been demolished by that time, though the roadway remains visible. On aerial photographs taken in 2019, no features of the former Site 5 (Living Site 1) camp are visible, but recent remote sensing indicates that many rectangular concrete platforms laid for the camp buildings remain intact within the woodland

<1> Hall D.N., 2001, Northamptonshire Woodland Survey Archive, (unchecked) (Digital archive). SNN109590.

<2> Hall D.N., 2000, Forest Enterprise Woodlands In Northamptonshire: Whittlewood Forest And Other Woods, Archaeological Survey, Part 3, (unchecked) (Report). SNN100485.

<3> Hall D.N., 2000, The Historic Landscape of Whittlewood Forest: Historic Landscape Mapping, (unchecked) (Report). SNN102634.

<4> RAF, 1945, RAF Silverstone Record Site Plan All Sites 1/2500 scale No. 1757/45, June 1945 (Plan). SNN116527.

<5> Royal Air Force, 1940s, RAF Vertical Aerial Photographs, RAF-106G-UK-1380 RP 3323 09-APR-1946 (Aerial Photograph(s)). SNN105266.

<6> Vertical Aerial Photograph, OS-73336 V 596 24-JUN-1973 (Aerial Photograph(s)). SNN112695.

<7> Vertical Aerial Photograph, Next Perspectives APGB Imagery 14-SEP-2019 SP6542-6642 (Aerial Photograph(s)). SNN112695.

<8> Environment Agency, LIDAR Composite DTM - 1m, LIDAR SP64SE Environment Agency National LIDAR Programme DTM 1 Metre dated 2019 SP6542-6642 (Digital Plots). SNN111710.

Record last edited

Nov 26 2024 1:33PM