A taste of Lincolnshire's military history part 1 of 3: RAF Hemswell

Lincolnshire is awash with WW2 and Cold War relics such as old RAF bases, radar stations, anti-aircraft batteries, coastal gun sites and even intermediate-range ballistic (IRBM) missile sites.

For this investigation, three sites were identified as having potential to offer a glimpse into the area's military heritage: RAF Hemswell, RAF Caistor and Stallingborough heavy anti-aircraft gun site, and so an afternoon was made of it.

Part 1 - RAF Hemswell

Located a few miles east of Gainsborough, construction of the base as a bomber airfield began in 1935, opening 1937. According to the informative 'Forgotten Airfields' site,

Hemswell's Hampdens are credited with being the first Bomber Command aircraft to drop bombs on German soil on the night of 19 March 1940 during an attack on the seaplane base at Hornum.

Aerial shot of the site during WW2 (from Forgotten Airfields)

Various RAF units were based there after the war, then in 1958 the base became an American Thor IRBM missile unit, which was headquarters for the Lincolnshire group that also included RAF Caistor, RAF Bardney, RAF Coleby Grange and RAF Ludford Magna.

A Thor PGM-17 missile being tested

Altogether there were 20 such sites in the east of England, each harbouring 3 missiles with thermonuclear warheads trained on the Soviet Union. The endeavor was codenamed Project Emily and the missiles were put on full alert during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, before being superseded by inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) based on American soil.

According to Wikipedia, these missiles were returned to the US in 1963 and the RAF last used the site in 1974. Now the hangars are in commercial use, the technical buildings are used by traders, particularly antique dealers, and the domestic area is now the pleasant residential village of Hemswell Cliff.

A contemporary aerial photo looking south

What was most intriguing was an area in the north east corner of the site (in the bottom left of the above photo), which from above looks like 12 bunkers or pill boxes - a lot different to the usual Thor missile emplacement layout, which was not found. This mysterious section was found to be heavily fortified, with many cameras.

During inspection (from outside the fence) a couple of workers from the area containing the vast grain silos approached and one kindly asked if he could help. When asked about the facility one initially said there were big fireworks in there, but when pressed for more detail said that the area was 'just storage'. Whatever is being stored here is being done so very securely.

On with the photos, starting with the remains of one of the airstrips.

It was unclear what function this building near the runway used to serve.

Now tyres have been dumped there.

This is the area of most interest - note the razor wire, cameras, blast walls and heavy metallic units.

Aerial view of the above area

If anyone knows what was and/or still is in here please get in touch as it would be very interesting to know.

Update
Thanks to help from the 28DaysLater forum, it's been confirmed this is a storage area for a fireworks company (formerly an explosives/bomb dump when in RAF use).

Part 2 takes in former RAF Caistor - click here to launch!