RAF Bircham Newton

RAF Bircham Newton was a military airfield in north-west Norfolk, lying a few miles south-east of Docking and north-east of King’s Lynn. It opened in 1918, late in the First World War, as a base for heavy bombers; Handley Page V/1500 machines were readied here for a planned raid on Berlin in November 1918, but poor weather and then the Armistice meant the attack never went ahead.

During the Second World War the station served chiefly under Coastal Command, within No. 16 Group, flying maritime reconnaissance, anti-shipping, convoy-protection and air-sea rescue sorties over the North Sea. A long list of squadrons passed through, among them No. 206 Squadron with Avro Ansons and later Lockheed Hudsons, No. 221 Squadron with Vickers Wellingtons, and No. 42 Squadron with Vickers Vildebeest torpedo aircraft. Royal Canadian Air Force units and several Fleet Air Arm naval squadrons also operated from the field at various times.

The airfield remained in RAF use into the post-war years, hosting evaluation trials of the Hawker Siddeley Kestrel V/STOL aircraft in 1965 before military flying ceased and the station closed in the 1960s. The site was subsequently taken over by the Construction Industry Training Board as a training centre, a role it still fulfils. Many of the original buildings survive, and Bircham Newton is regarded as one of the best-preserved former airfields in Britain.