RAF Eshott/felton/bockenfield

RAF Eshott was a wartime airfield in Northumberland, lying within the parish of Thirston between Morpeth and Alnwick, roughly twenty miles north of Newcastle upon Tyne. It opened on 10 November 1942 and served chiefly as a fighter-training base rather than an operational bomber or fighter station.

For almost its entire active life the airfield was home to No. 57 Operational Training Unit, which used Supermarine Spitfires to prepare pilots for front-line fighter squadrons. From March 1943 Eshott functioned as a satellite of RAF Boulmer, with RAF Morpeth acting as its parent station. Several smaller units passed through over the war years, including No. 289 Squadron in the spring of 1945, a detachment of No. 291 Squadron carrying out anti-aircraft co-operation flying, and the airfield-defence units Nos. 2777 and 2803 Squadrons of the RAF Regiment.

The station closed in June 1945 as the war in Europe ended and the need for fighter training fell away. The site was not abandoned, however, and parts of it later returned to aviation use. Today Eshott operates as a civil general-aviation airfield, with hangarage and a clubhouse serving light aircraft and microlights, while other portions of the former wartime ground have reverted to farmland.