Bent Rigg Radar Station, (also known as Royal Air Force Ravenscar, and Ravenscar tracking station), was a radar site located at Bent Rigg, south of Ravenscar,

North Yorkshire North Yorkshire is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in Northern England.The Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority areas of City of York, York and North Yorkshire (district), North Yorkshire are in Yorkshire and t ...

, England. Several radar stations had been located in the Ravenscar area from 1938, but a more permanent site was built at Bent Rigg in 1941, which was crewed by technicians and other staff from the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the Air force, air and space force of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. It was formed towards the end of the World War I, First World War on 1 April 1918, on the merger of t ...

. Bent Rigg, and the wider location around Ravenscar, was deemed "attractive" for the siting of long-range finding equipment. It was originally part of the Coastal Defence/Chain Home Low (CD/CHL) system, designed to detect shipping. Later, it was upgraded with more powerful equipment as part of the Chain Home Extra Low (CHEL). The last recorded use of the station was in September 1944, and it is believed that the site closed soon afterwards. A few structures remain at the site, with the foundations of the accommodation blocks still extant near an abandoned railway line to the west. The site is open to the public, being located next to the

Cleveland Way The Cleveland Way is a National Trail in the historic area of Cleveland in North Yorkshire, Northern England. It runs between Helmsley and the Brigg at Filey, skirting the North York Moors National Park. History Development of the Cleve ...

, and the National Trust have erected information boards detailing the buildings and the history of the site.

History

The proposal to site a radar at Ravenscar was first mooted in 1937, when a party from the Directorate of Works, and representatives from

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, assessed at least ten locations from the

Isle of Wight The Isle of Wight (Help:IPA/English, /waɪt/ Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''WYTE'') is an island off the south coast of England which, together with its surrounding uninhabited islets and Skerry, skerries, is also a ceremonial county. T ...

Berwick-upon-Tweed Berwick-upon-Tweed (), sometimes known as Berwick-on-Tweed or simply Berwick, is a town and civil parish in Northumberland, England, south of the Anglo-Scottish border, and the northernmost town in England. The 2011 United Kingdom census recor ...

. Ravenscar and a site near

Bridlington Bridlington (previously known as Burlington) is a seaside town and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It is on the Holderness part (Flamborough Head to the Humber estuary) of the Yorkshire Coast by the North Sea. The town is ...

, were assessed but later dropped in favour of Danby Beacon and Staxton Wold. However, in 1938, a radar site was constructed near to Bent Rigg, south of Ravenscar, to provide temporary radar cover after the

Munich Crisis The Munich Agreement was reached in Munich on 30 September 1938, by Nazi Germany, the United Kingdom, the French Republic, and the Kingdom of Italy. The agreement provided for the German annexation of part of Czechoslovakia called the Sudete ...

of 1938. The Air Ministry was "galvanised" to complete the radar programme ahead of schedule, and so the mobile radars that were stored at Bawdsey for deployment overseas, were pressed into action at Ravenscar and other key locations. The equipment didn't last very long at Ravenscar, being donated in spring 1939 to an accelerated site at Netherbutton in the

Orkney Islands Orkney (), also known as the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago off the north coast of mainland Scotland. The plural name the Orkneys is also sometimes used, but locals now consider it outdated. Part of the Northern Isles along with Shetland ...

. With Ottercops Moss in

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now active and covering the

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area, the equipment at Bent Rigg/Ravenscar was dismantled on 1 May 1939, and taken up to

Rosyth Rosyth () is a town and Garden City in Fife, Scotland, on the coast of the Firth of Forth. Scotland's first Garden city movement, Garden City, Rosyth is part of the Greater Dunfermline Area and is located 3 miles south of Dunfermline city cen ...

for shipping to Orkney. By September 1939, Ravenscar had been re-equipped, and was manned initially by members of the 29th Coast Observer Detachment (part of the 526th Durham Coast Regiment). It was later due to receive some towers as part of the "Intermediate Chain Home" (ICH) programme, albeit still with the Ravenscar site being temporary, but the location was ideal for the siting of radar. Richardson and Dennison labelled the site "attractive" for the siting of long-range detecting devices, as it occupied "..a broad, visible sweep of the horizon.. ndan elevated position". It fulfilled the requirements of a radar site as stated by Bragg in the book ''"RDF 1 : the location of aircraft by radio methods 1935-1945"''- Work on the site began in late 1940, and by October 1941, along with the Dronehill and West Beckham sites, Bent Rigg was commissioned as an ''ACH'' (Advanced Chain Home) location, with at least four permanent structures on the technical site. Its original designation was station M47; however, when it was upgraded to the Chain Home Extra Low system, it was labelled as K47. As M47, it was one of five sites along the Yorkshire coast in the Coastal Defence/Chain Home Low (CD/CHL) system. From March 1941, the site was equipped with a static Type 2 radar, which by the time it had been classified as station M47, the radar had a wavelength of . The re-designation as station K47 under the CHEL system, saw it equipped with a centimetric Type 52 radar. Improvements in radar technology, meant that enhanced stations had the ability to scan further and wider, resulting in the need for fewer stations. As part of the Chain Home Extra Low system, Bent Rigg was one of three on the Yorkshire coast, and the only one on its original site, the other two being Saltburn (on a different site to the "M" station), and

Flamborough Head Flamborough Head () is a promontory, long on the Yorkshire coast of England, between the Filey and Bridlington bays of the North Sea. It is a chalk headland, with sheer white cliffs. The cliff top has two standing lighthouse towers, the olde ...

(a new site called

RAF Bempton Royal Air Force Bempton or more simply RAF Bempton is a former Royal Air Force station situated at Bempton in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England, north of Bridlington. During the Second World War it was established as a radar station, beco ...

). Between each of these stations, the distance was only - Bempton to Ravenscar , and Ravenscar to Saltburn was . The technical (operational) site was built on the cliff edge with "a commanding view of the sea", and covered an area no bigger than by , but the domestic site was further inland, close to the railway line between Whitby and Scarborough. Whilst the railway line was open when the radar station was in use, supplies and personnel may have been carried by the railway, although no platform was built at the site, with railway station at being the nearest railhead. The distance between the accommodation site and the technical site was , but archaeological surveys have not uncovered any evidence of pathways linking the two. At other radar sites built around the same time, and to the same specifications (such as

Craster Craster is a small fishing village on the Northumberland coast of England, from Alnwick. The next village to the north is Embleton. It is within the Northumberland Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Geography The walk along the coa ...

and Goldsborough), pathways marked by upright stones were evident, which was thought to allow workers to navigate the site during a blackout. Remains of accommodation site at Bent Rigg

Remains of accommodation site at Bent Rigg

A revamped Ravenscar proved to be one of the most useful early detection sites, it could recognise aircraft at at a range of ; this gave

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and

Middlesbrough Middlesbrough ( ), colloquially known as Boro, is a port town in the Borough of Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire, England. Lying to the south of the River Tees, Middlesbrough forms part of the Teesside Built up area, built-up area and the Tees Va ...

a 30-minute warning. A similar site at

Coldingham Coldingham is a village and parish in Berwickshire in the Scottish Borders. It lies a short distance inland from Coldingham Bay, three miles northeast of the fishing village of Eyemouth. Parish The parish lies in the east of the Lammermuir ...

Berwickshire Berwickshire (; ) is a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area in south-eastern Scotland, on the English border. The county takes its name from Berwick-upon-Tweed, its original county town, which was part of Scotland at the ...

( RAF Dronehill), could only detect at and a range of , giving

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a 20-minute warning. It was later staffed by communications technicians from the Royal Air Force , becoming known in Air Force documents as RAF Ravenscar, which was part of No. 73 (Signals) Wing RAF, which had their headquarters in Malton, North Yorkshire. Whilst it is not exactly certain, it is believed that the site was closed sometime soon after September 1944, when it was last recorded in use. What remains of the permanent structures is the communications hut, engine house, fuel store and the transmitter/receiver block, which are part of the scheduled designation. The coastguard tower on the cliff edge, and a fifth building on the southern edge of the site, are not part of the scheduled monument. Another platform exists to the north east of the TX/Rx block which housed a structure measuring by . It is uncertain what function this building was required for. The domestic accommodation was demolished in the latter part of the 1940s, but the foundations are still visible on the west side of the field bordering the former railway line. The site was labelled with many names; those who served there from the RAF referred to the site as RAF Ravenscar. Other names are Bent Rigg, which is the most common, and Radio Tracking Station Ravenscar.

Buildings

The site at Ravenscar is now on

National Trust The National Trust () is a heritage and nature conservation charity and membership organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Trust was founded in 1895 by Octavia Hill, Sir Robert Hunter and Hardwicke Rawnsley to "promote the ...

land, and along with

further down the Yorkshire coast, is one of six radar sites across England with a preservation order, or scheduled monument designation. The site at Ravenscar is said to be the best example of a World War Two radar station along the coastline of Yorkshire and the north east. Four structures at the technical site remain near to the cliff edge, which is accessible to the public either from the

, or from the ''Cinder Path'', which is the former trackbed of the

Scarborough and Whitby Railway The Scarborough and Whitby Railway was a railway line from Scarborough to Whitby in North Yorkshire, England. The line followed a difficult but scenic route along the North Yorkshire coast. The line opened in 1885 and closed in 1965 as part o ...

line. Three of the extant buildings are of a concrete construction, whilst the fourth is a

Nissen hut A Nissen hut is a prefabricated steel structure originally for military use, especially as barracks, made from a 210° portion of a cylindrical skin of corrugated iron. It was designed during the First World War by the Canadian-American-British e ...

. Whilst it is recorded that the technical area was functioning by February 1942, the Nissen Hut must be a later addition as that type of hut did not go into production until May 1942. A fifth building on the southern edge of the field, is believed to have been involved with the main power supply. It is not in the official scheduled designation. The National Trust have designated the buildings as follows: The layout at Bent Rigg radar site

Archaeological surveys of the area have determined that the domestic accommodation, mess hall and offices, which numbered ten buildings, were to the south west of the technical site, but these have been removed/demolished. The site had washroom and toilet facilities some north of the domestic accommodation.

Notes

References

Sources

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External links