UK Mega 2021: Lincolnshire
LLL: Stash, Dash and Cache - RAF Skendleby
Our cache is placed a short distance from what used to be RAF Skendleby, RAF Skendleby was originally designed as a Chain Home Low Radar site and became operational in 1941. The site covers a 6.75-acre windswept site, situated 1-mile north-east of Skendleby. From 1942 CHL sites were combined with the British Army's Coastal Defence/Chain Home Low (CD/CHL) sites to form a single, unified system of low-cover radar under the control of the Royal Air Force. The selected stations were upgraded with centimetric radars to become the K-series of Chain Home Extra Low (CHEL) stations. Skendleby was one of the upgraded sites and in 1942 was fitted with centimetric radar to become a Chain Home Extra Low station, Site K161. The Type 54 centimetric radar was mounted on a 200 ft wooden tower and Type 5 also retained alongside it until the end of the war. Although the CHL station closed down in 1945 Skendleby still functioned in this low-altitude detection role as late as Jan 1947 when it detected some of the first reported UFOs in the United Kingdom Air Defence Region.
Skendleby was reactivated in the early 1950s as part of the ROTOR programme to modernise the United Kingdom's radar defences, remaining active until the late 1960s.
The field behind the bunker, where the Radar plinths had been located, reverted to farmland in the 1960s on the demise of ROTOR when it was decided to make the bunker a Regional Seat Of Government. In later use the bunker became SRHQ31 covering Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire.
This nuclear bunker (TF 442708), set in the beauty of the Lincolnshire Wolds, is a grim reminder of Cold War days. Above ground here are four ventilation shafts, and this 'bungalow' (whose 'windows' are actually painted on concrete). Below ground, the nuclear bunker, could house a regional seat of government, and accommodate over 100 people. The bunker was constructed in 1985 and would have been brought into use in the event of a total thermo-nuclear war. The bunker was decommissioned in 1993.
The Bunker is now in private ownership having been bought by a storage company in 1995. The ROTOR lattice mast still stands in a fenced enclosure between the bungalow and bunker and is most obvious by its shadow in aerial photographs.
The next gateway up from our cache is the entrance to the site, you can see the bungalow with the 'painted on' windows just inside to the right. Please stop briefly to have a look but do not block the entrance, the first set of security gates are automatic and will open if you pull up too close as we found out when setting the circuit, there are also security cameras in operation.
The usual geocacher's kit is required, tweezers, pen/pencil etc.
