Royal Air Force Barton Hall or more simply RAF Barton Hall is a former
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 ...
station
Station may refer to:
Agriculture
* Station (Australian agriculture), a large Australian landholding used for livestock production
* Station (New Zealand agriculture), a large New Zealand farm used for grazing by sheep and cattle
** Cattle statio ...
situated between the villages of
Barton and
Broughton, near
Preston, Lancashire
Preston () is a city on the north bank of the River Ribble in Lancashire, England. The city is the administrative centre of the county of Lancashire and the wider City of Preston, Lancashire, City of Preston local government district. Preston ...
, England.
History
Barton Hall, which replaced an old manor house, was built for the Shuttleworth family in about 1750. In 1939 part of the estate was requisitioned for military use. During the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, the Operations Centre of
No. 9 Group RAF was housed there in three buildings (Operations Room,
Filter Room
A Filter Room was part of RAF Fighter Command's radar defence system in Britain during the Second World War. The filter room at Fighter Command Headquarters lay at the top of the Dowding system - the integrated ground-controlled interception ne ...
and Communications Centre), which were partially buried for protection, in a similar way to buildings for
No. 10 Group RAF at
RAF Box
RAF Rudloe Manor, formerly RAF Box, was a Royal Air Force station north-east of Bath, England, between the settlements of Box and Corsham, in Wiltshire. It was one of several military installations in the area and covered three dispersed sites. ...
,
No. 11 Group RAF
No. 11 Group is a group in the Royal Air Force first formed in 1918. It had been formed and disbanded for various periods during the 20th century before disbanding in 1996 and reforming again in 2018. Its most famous service was in 1940 in the B ...
at
RAF Uxbridge
RAF Uxbridge was a Royal Air Force (RAF) station in Uxbridge, within the London Borough of Hillingdon, occupying a site that originally belonged to the Hillingdon House estate. The British Government purchased the estate in 1915, three years b ...
,
No. 12 Group RAF
No. 12 Group RAF (12 Gp) of the Royal Air Force was a group, a military formation, that existed over two separate periods, namely the end of the First World War when it had a training function and from just prior to the Second World War until t ...
at
RAF Watnall,
No. 13 Group RAF at
RAF Newcastle and
No. 14 Group RAF
No. 14 Group RAF (14 Gp) was the title of several Royal Air Force Group (military aviation unit), groups, including a group responsible for anti-submarine activity from 1918 to 1919 after being transferred from the Royal Naval Air Service; a fig ...
at
Raigmore House
Raigmore House was a country house in Raigmore, Inverness.
History
The house was designed by Archibald Simpson and constructed for Lachlan Mackintosh of Raigmore, a merchant who had returned from Kolkata, Calcutta, in about 1810. On Lachlan Mack ...
in Inverness.
Operations room ()
The operations room, responsible for directing RAF aircraft in the No. 9 Group area, was located in a bunker on Langley Lane,
Goosnargh
Goosnargh ( ) is a village and civil parish in the City of Preston district of Lancashire, England.
The village lies between Broughton and Longridge, and mostly lies in the civil parish of Whittingham, although the ancient centre lies in ...
, 1 mile (2 km) east of Barton Hall.
[ After the war the ]Royal Observer Corps
The Royal Observer Corps (ROC) was a civil defence organisation intended for the visual detection, identification, tracking and reporting of aircraft over Great Britain. It operated in the United Kingdom between 29 October 1925 and 31 Decembe ...
21 Group Headquarters and the Western Sector Control of the United Kingdom Warning and Monitoring Organisation
The United Kingdom Warning and Monitoring Organisation (UKWMO) was a British civilian organisation operating to provide UK military and civilian authorities with data on nuclear explosions and forecasts of fallout across the country in the even ...
took over the bunker. In the bunker was the standby national control of the famous ''Four-minute warning
The four-minute warning was a public alert system conceived by the British Government during the Cold War and operated between 1953 and 1992. The name derived from the approximate length of time from the point at which a Soviet nuclear missile a ...
'' air raid warning system for the UK. The ROC and UKWMO were disbanded between 1991 and 1995 and the bunker was closed.
Filter room ()
The Filter room, responsible for filtering large quantities of intelligence on enemy activity before it was passed to the operations room, was located in a bunker on the south side of Whittingham Lane, a little further east.[ The Filter room contained a map table showing the British coast from north Wales through western Scotland. One of the WAAF officers in the Barton Hall Filter Room, ]Eileen Younghusband
Dame Eileen Louise Younghusband, DBE (1 January 1902 – 22 May 1981) was internationally known for her research and teaching in the field of social work.
Early life
Her father was Sir Francis Younghusband (1863–1942), a British explorer a ...
recorded her experiences there in "One Woman's War."
Communications room ()
The communications room, responsible for accommodating all the communications equipment, was located on Brass Pan Lane, north of Broughton.[
After the war, Barton Hall itself was the site of the Preston Air Traffic Control Centre which provided the Area Control service between N52.30 and N55.00, with London ATCC (at ]Heathrow
Heathrow Airport , also colloquially known as London Heathrow Airport and named ''London Airport'' until 1966, is the primary and largest international airport serving London, the capital and most populous city of England and the United Kingdo ...
and later West Drayton) to the South and Scottish ATCC (at Prestwick
Prestwick () is a town in South Ayrshire on the west coast of Ayrshire in Scotland about southwest of Glasgow. It adjoins the larger town of Ayr to the south on the Firth of Clyde coast, the centre of which is about south, and the small vi ...
) to the North. The unit closed in 1975, its task having been absorbed by London ATCC and Manchester Sub-centre situated at Manchester Airport
Manchester Airport is an international airport in Ringway, Manchester, England, south-west of Manchester city centre. In 2024, it was the third busiest airport in the United Kingdom in terms of passengers (the busiest outside of London) ...
.
References
Air traffic control in the United Kingdom
Buildings and structures in the City of Preston
Military air traffic control
Royal Air Force stations in Lancashire
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