RAF Hooton Park

RAF Hooton Park occupied a site on the Wirral peninsula in Cheshire that had been in use for aviation since 1917, when it opened as a Royal Flying Corps training aerodrome; three of its First World War “Belfast” truss hangars survive and are Grade II*-listed. Between the wars it became a centre for civil flying and the home of No. 610 (County of Chester) Squadron of the Auxiliary Air Force, formed there in 1936. During the Second World War its main work was the assembly, repair and storage of aircraft — including American-built fighters such as the Mustang, Lightning and Thunderbolt shipped to Britain — alongside maintenance and reconnaissance-training units. Auxiliary squadrons returned afterwards, flying Spitfires and then Meteor jets until the Auxiliary Air Force was disbanded in 1957. Vauxhall Motors bought the land in 1960 for its Ellesmere Port plant, and the surviving hangars are now cared for by the Hooton Park Trust, which houses an aircraft collection.