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  1. #1
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    Arrow RAF Stoke Holy Cross Chain Home Station 2012

    Visited today with ShadowOps.

    I have been interested in this site for a while, after spotting the aerials in the distance when riding to work.
    After a bit of research into the site and after a few emails and phone calls, we visited the site.

    We met the owner, Derek, a very interesting man, and full of information and stories, who lives on the site in the old switching station, obviously converted to a house, and has a excellent little museum situated in the old guard house at the enterance!!
    The site seems to be mostly in orginal condition, and the owner was good enough to take us around explaining all the details of the site.
    He showed us areas where bombs had been dropped in order to destroy these stations and pointed out Jake Humphries (F1 reporter) dads house.
    Once we had finished on his site, and after a cup of coffee, he took us for a drive around the area, showing us various areas where bombs had been dropped, 62 on Stoke Holy Cross itself, and 32 in neighbouring Poringland.
    We then proceeded to site number two which he had the keys for, and this is home to one of the original mast array's and a newer BT tower.

    This is the site where, on the 18th July 1942, a Blenheim IV aircraft flew and hit one of the towers, killing all on board.
    A plaque sits in their memory, and the site owner, Derek, remembers the aftermath, and went into grafic detail of what remained, but will not go in to that now.
    The masts were all 360 ft tall and were all pulled down in 1957 by a company called Cole Demolition. Derek remembered that at the time the demo guys had never done anything like this before so cut through the bottom of each mast, after managing to tie a cable to the top, and used a hand winch to pull the tower down.
    The timber towers were brought down and the timber was purchased by Dawson's in Hellesdon.

    There was so much to take in, and hopefully we can get another forum member to tag along to video document everything and put it on Youtube.


    Photobucket has messed up the order of my photo's once again, so bear with me as i will explain each pic when you get to it!!


    This is the newer BT tower on the second site which by the looks of it has every type of satellite, mobile phone and radio antenna connected through it!!



    This picture shows the remaining original antenna array, still in use, but not sure what for??



    This structure remains a mystery to both Derek, so if anyone knows then please get in touch



    One of many orginal remaining plinths for the antenna to sit on



    An imposed image of how the site would of looked then.



    This is the memorial plinth in memory of the men who died aboard the plane which hit one of the towers in 1942



    And again



    This is Jake Humphries dads house, we did not knock on the door to see if he was there!!!



    The gap in the hedgerow is where one bomb dropped exploded



    If you look closely in the middle of the fore ground you can see the spire of Norwich cathederal



    This is the view from Derek's site looking towards the BT and original array site.



    One of the group of four plinths which supported the antenna array, the structure next to it again is unknown, Derek has added the roof and front wall, so we imagine it was used to store a mobile station and would have been covered with netting, but again if you know anymore please let me know.



    A view from inside one of the pillboxes.



    And again!!.



    This writing on the wall was spotted by a german lady who came to look round, Derek has since been going over it with pencil as it fades and he wants to keep it readable, he has also done some research trying to find out about these people.



    This was quite cool, a bullet hole in one of the fence panels after an attack.



    Looking across the site.



    The pill box protecting the site.



    Derek has created a small museum in the guard hut at the enterance to the site, it is crammed with tons of information, pictures and was very interesting.



    And again.



    This was a strange story that Derek told us, the two doors into the bunker are well secure, but every now and then when he comes into the bunker the securing bolts across the top and bottom have been undone. In one of the pictures you will see a rectangle of sand in the floor, Derek put this here to see if anyone left any foot prints, they havent, very weird!!!!



    In this pic you will see the sand



    This room would have been the telephone room.



    This piece of wood was discovered by Derek when he was ploughing a field, it was pile driven into the ground and lifted the plough into the air!!!



    Some of many paper cutting Derek has on display around the bunker.



    A cool picture of Winston Churchill mounted on the side of the power supply box.



    The original power supply box which has sadly been vandalised over the years by kids.



    The toilet was used by both men and women.



    Derek with some of the artifacts he accumalated and has on display in the bunker.




    More pics to follow in next post as i have typed to much and computer says NO!!
    Last edited by southy1981; 06-05-2012 at 07:03 PM.

  2. #2
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    Default Re: RAF Stoke Holy Cross Chain Home Station

    The Chain Home system was fairly primitive, since — in order to be battle-ready — it had been rushed into production by Sir Robert Watson-Watt's Air Ministry research station near Bawdsey. Watson-Watt, a pragmatic engineer, believed that "third-best" would do if "second-best" would not be available in time and "best" never available at all. Chain Home certainly suffered from glitches and errors in reporting.

    It was in many ways technically inferior to German radar developments, but the better German technology came at a cost. The simpler Chain Home stations provided comprehensive coverage by the start of the Battle of Britain, whereas the Germans had only commissioned around 8 of their Freya stations by this time. Although simple, Chain Home could determine distance and direction of incoming aircraft formations. The method was called Radio Direction Finding (RDF), later called "radar" (RAdio Direction And Ranging) in the U.S. Most stations were also able to measure the angle of elevation of the formation which, together with the range, gave the height; local geography prevented some stations from measuring elevation. Although not originally a design goal, the operators became very adept at estimating the size of detected formations from the shape of the displayed returns.

    Chain Home looked nothing like later radar equipment. The antenna did not rotate: the transmitting array was formed of fixed wires strung between 110 m (360 ft)-high metal towers which sent out a "floodlight" beam of radio energy about 100° wide.[3] The receiving array was on wooden towers about 73 m (240 ft) high, and consisted of two antennas at right angles to each other.[4] The receiving antennas were directional, so the signal strength received by each depended on the angle between it and the target. An operator would manually adjust a comparator device to find what angle to the target best matched the relative strengths of the two received signals. The angle of elevation to the target was estimated by similar comparison of the signal strengths from a second pair of receiving antennas closer to the ground, which produced a different sensitivity in elevation.[5] The time delay of the echo determined the range to the target.

    The Chain Home stations were arranged around the British coast, initially in the South and East but later the entire coastline, including the Shetland Islands. They were first tested in the Battle of Britain in 1940 when they were able to provide adequate early warning of incoming Luftwaffe raids. Their early deployment had allowed the U.K. time to develop a well-integrated communication system to direct responses to enemy formations detected.

    Chain Home had many limitations. With fixed antennae facing the sea, the Observer Corps had to be employed to report aircraft movements once the coast was reached. With detection poor below 5,000 ft (1,500 m), Chain Home Low stations were placed between Chain Home stations to detect aircraft down to 2,000 ft (610 m) but only out to 35 mi (56 km) from the coast, about one third the range of Chain Home.[11]

    Calibration of the system was carried out initially using a flight of mostly civilian-flown, impressed Avro Rota autogyros flying over a known landmark, the radar then being calibrated so that the position of a target relative to the ground could be read from the position on the display CRT. The Rota was used because of its ability to maintain a relatively stationary position over the ground, the pilots learning to fly in small circles while remaining heading into the wind.

    During the battle, Chain Home stations — most notably the one at Ventnor, Isle of Wight — were attacked several times between 12 and 18 August 1940. On one occasion a section of the radar chain in Kent, including the Dover CH, was put out of action by a lucky hit on the power grid. However, though the wooden huts housing the radar equipment were damaged, the towers survived owing to their open steel girder construction. Because the towers were untoppled and the signals soon restored, the Luftwaffe concluded the stations were too difficult to damage by bombing and left them alone for the remainder of the war. Had the Luftwaffe realised just how essential the radar stations were to British air defences, it is likely that they would have expended great effort to destroy them.

    The Chain Home system was dismantled after the war, some of the original sites being used for Chain Home's replacement system, ROTOR, but some of the tall steel Chain Home radar towers remain, converted to new uses. One such 360-foot (110 m) high transmitter tower (picture below) can now be found at the BAE Systems facility at Great Baddow in Essex (2008). It originally stood at Canewdon, and is said to be the only Chain Home tower still in its original, unmodified form.

    Among the tallest timber structures ever built in the United Kingdom, at least two of the wooden reception towers were still standing in 1955, at Hayscastle Cross.

  3. #3
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    Default Re: RAF Stoke Holy Cross Chain Home Station


    This is where the operators would of sat monitoring the equipment.


    An orignal picture of what the room would of looked like.



    One of the original wooden ladders, presumably used for a variety of tasks around the site.



    Derek said this is where a clock would of been displayed. But the more interesting bit was above it was a small explosive device, which, in the event of an attack would of been used to destoy the equipment in the room.



    A long shot of the first room we entered.



    All original light fittings etc are still in situ.



    This hole would of been where the cables from the four antennas would have entered the bunker.





    And finally another great picture of an orginal piece of fence from the second site, with some great bullet holes!!



    And again!!!



    This was the switch station which is Dereks house.



    Another pillbox with a gun mount still in situ



    A view of the many plinths holding the array.



    And again.

  4. The Following User Says Thank You to southy1981 For This Useful Post:

    rickyt (08-05-2012)

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