RAF Bottesford

RAF Bottesford was a wartime airfield on the Leicestershire side of the county’s border with Lincolnshire, a few miles north-west of Grantham. It opened in the autumn of 1941 and entered service as a heavy bomber station within No. 5 Group, RAF Bomber Command, with its parent headquarters at nearby Spitalgate.

The first resident unit was No. 207 Squadron, which arrived late in 1941 flying the troublesome twin-engined Avro Manchester before converting to the four-engined Avro Lancaster and taking part in night raids against Germany. After 207 moved on in 1942, the station became home to No. 467 Squadron RAAF, an Australian Lancaster unit that began operations from Bottesford early in 1943.

During 1943 the airfield was loaned to the United States Army Air Forces, hosting troop carrier groups — including the 436th and 440th — equipped with Douglas C-47 transports for airborne-forces and glider work. In its later years the site was used for training and aircraft storage.

The station closed after the war, and the surviving ground has since been turned over to farmland and commercial use; the technical area now forms an industrial and business park, with the control tower converted to offices and stretches of the runways still in place.