WW2 Radar Station - Canewdon Traditional Geocache
grimmerscotting: Taking down.
WW2 Radar Station - Canewdon
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A walk around the remains of a WW2 Radar Station that was critical to the defence of this country during the Second World War.
This radar site (Air Ministry Experimental Station Type 1) was sited on the edge of Canewdon village, it was the fourth to be built in Britain. The site comprised both a Receiving and Transmission site with four masts on each. One of it’s first operational tasks was to track Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s flight to Munich in September 1938.
Radar (Radio Direction and Ranging), which was to play such an important part in the defence of Britain during the Second World War, was developed amid great secrecy in the latter half of the 1930’s. The site at Canewdon, completed in 1938, was one of the first to be established, along with Bawdsey, Great Bromley, Dunkirk (Kent) and Dover. By the outbreak of war in September 1939 it formed part of a network of 20 such ‘Chain Home’ stations protecting the east coast of Britain, stretching from Scotland to the Isle-of-Wight. The station was split into two halves, the Receiver Site, with four 240 foot timber towers, located north of Lambourne Hall Road, and the Transmitter Site, with four 350 foot steel towers, south of Gardeners Lane.
The layout of the Receiver Site can be partly determined from an aerial photograph taken in June 1960. The entrance was off Lambourne Hall Road between a pillbox, and a house, “Wild Winds”, both of which still survive. This led to a large L-shaped tract of land on the brow of the hill overlooking the valley of the River Crouch to the north. Approximately six buildings can be made out dotted across the site. In the centre is a large, rectangular, flat-roofed building, semi-sunken with a blast wall. This was undoubtedly the Receiver Block.
Unfortunately not too much of the original radar station remains, the receiver site has been completely cleared and the site is now an open field. No one would ever know that momentous events were once tracked from here. Three hundred yards to the south, the bunkers which held the transmitters are still there. The huge 360 ft steel towers are gone, although their base plates remain. Interestingly, one of the towers did escape the oxy-acetylene cutter. It was moved to Marconi at Great Baddow in the 1950s and now stands high above the Chelmsford skyline. If you want to see the tower, visit Helennbrian's excellent cache Marconi Tower GC1FFKW.
I recommend parking at the village hall and follow the road towards the cache which is hidden in the small wood opposite the entrance to the receiving station. Once you've found the cache, why not continue your walk which comes out opposite the entrance to the transmitter station in Gardeners Lane. Turn right and follow the road to the junction with Anchor Lane and turn right again, following the road back to your car.
Refreshments and food are available at the Anchor Pub in the village, should you so desire.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Uvqqra ol ryqre!