Afternoon walk: Thorne Moors

Many people haven't heard of Doncaster's famous raised peat bog or mire system that combines with others spanning the borders of South Yorkshire, East Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire forming the Humberhead Peatlands, part of the Humberhead Levels landscape.

Humberhead levels

But they should, as the reserves' importance is underlined by Thorne & Hatfield Moors Conservation Forum, who explain "the acidic peat of the Moors creates an environment in which few bacteria survive and where there is minimal free oxygen. This inhibits the process of decay and has allowed a veritable Domesday archive of four millennia to be preserved."

The wider area is mostly flat, arable farmland, but remnants of wetland such as Thorne Moors are a Natural England National Nature Reserve (NNR) whose management's main aim is "to create an internationally renowned, unique wetland landscape, supporting thriving communities, economy, ecosystem services and wildlife".

Along with other remnants, these moors make up one of England's twelve Nature Improvement Areas (NIAs), this one a partnership of 15 organisations listed by Yorkshire Wildlife Trust as:

Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council
North Lincolnshire Council
East Riding of Yorkshire Council
Environment Agency
Natural England
The University of Sheffield
The University of York
Ouse and Humber Drainage Board
Isle of Axholme and North Nottinghamshire Water Level Management Board
Shire Groups of Internal Drainage Boards
English Heritage
RSPB
Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust
Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust
Yorkshire Wildlife Trust (has a very informative website about management of the levels)

In times past it was called Thorne Waste, suggesting the area was disregarded by previous people, however a trackway was discovered in 1972, built in the Bronze Age

Peat was extracted commercially here from the late 19th century, with increasing mechanisation in the 20th - a visit to an abandoned peat factory not far from here was reported here in April.

Environmentalist action in the last half of the 20th century led to the land becoming common and a nature reserve, significantly thanks to campaigning by self confessed "bad-tempered old sod" William Bunting, an early eco-warrior who would patrol the moors with "revolver, swordstick, machete, wire-clippers and business cards". Geoffrey Lean's full 1997 article is published on the Independent's website and there's more information on this remarkable character on another blog.

Angered by no footpaths appearing on a 1952 map, Bunting set upon a lifetime campaign for access across the moors, studying legal speak in order to challenge what he saw as their illegal enclosure. His work helped stop waste dumping from Drax power station and his group, Bunting's Beavers would build dams to counteract their destruction by Fisons in their endeavour to extract the peat.

This 1953 OS map does show some footpaths. Thorne Colliery is shown on the left

Thorne Colliery, 1953

As open access land, under the Countryside & Rights of Way Act (2000), the public can "walk, ramble, run, explore, climb and watch wildlife as they are given the freedom to access land, without having to stay on paths". Doncaster Council has a useful walking map of Doncaster which shows public access routes and this area is shaded red to denote all of it accessible.

Some paths are grassy, some boggy, some overgrown, some with planks laid down to help passage in places. There's woodland, open bush and plenty of bog. The area is popular with birdwatchers - this is one of the few British hideouts of the reticent nightjar. The adder - Britain's only native venemous snake lives here, and there's diverse plant life. Various insects were seen including dragonflies, butterflies and various coloured "fly" flies.

Near the outskirts, the shaft wheel from Thorne Colliery at Moorends recreation ground

This seems to be some remains of the colliery 

En route

Temperate woodland near the start of the reserve

Couldn't work out the exact function of this water receptacle.

This is a view from the raised platform in the middle

A thoroughly recommended place to explore - the visit took in just part of an area which includes Goole, Crowle, Rawcliffe and Snaith & Cowick Moors, the latter detached from its parish several miles away. The size of the place means there's only so much you can see in one visit!

A taste of Lincolnshire's military history part 3 of 3: Stallingborough Heavy Anti-Aircraft Gun Site

For the final instalment of this series we go back to WW2 and a site which helped protect the Humber from air attack.

Stallingborough Heavy Anti-Aircraft Gun Site

A 3.7 inch gun site was in place here from June 1940 until May 1944, when it became one of 15 sites in the UK where 5.25 inch guns were mounted, of which 6 survive in some form today.

Example of a 5.25 AA gun at Heugh Battery Museum, Co. Durham

This one is in Gibraltar

The site is Grade II* listed as a result of its rarity, survival and technological, historical and social interest.

All four emplacements with their engine houses survive, plus the command post, guardhouse/gunstore and the generator house.

The British Listed Buildings website notes that "the design of the command post suggests that this was a gun site that employed female soldiers from the ATS, one of the milestones passed during the Second World War in the furtherance of equality between the sexes".

The guns remained in operation until as late as 1955. A Royal Observer Corps (ROC) post was constructed in 1961 and is also listed - presumably it is in good condition, but there wasn't chance to check during this visit.

Rod Collins' excellent website has a page dedicated to the site and includes first hand accounts of life on the site from a Len Copsey, including snippets such as

Re: [...] the compartments in the concrete surround, the 90lb projectiles (shell) were placed in there also the 56lb cordite explosive cartridge case so that as the Gun traversed to follow it target ammunition was always to hand on its 360 degree turning circle, the shell was passed up to the fuse setter, and placed in the trough with the cartridge behind moved over to the ramming position and brought back this was all done to chanting numbers = seconds of time until you reached as fast as possible, the Gun was operated by Hydraulic Pump powered by a Crossley Diesel Engine which were bastards to start...

Now covered by woodland, it provided an interesting exploratory.

One of the 4 emplacements

One of the entrances to a long part-submerged building, perhaps the command post

Looking into one of the bunkers - a torch would have been useful

Unfortunately at this point the phone camera battery went so sorry to not be able to bring you more!

Thanks for reading - that concludes this three part debrief. Click the "older posts" link below to see the previous two, or mobile readers can swipe left and right.

A taste of Lincolnshire's military history part 2 of 3: RAF Caistor

This post follows on from part 1 of a recent tour of 3 former military sites in Lincolnshire.

RAF Caistor

Built in 1940, Caistor was a minor RAF base, serving as a relief airstrip and training base during WW2, then returned to agricultural use afterwards.

In July 1959 however, it served as one of the 5 Thor missile stations of the Hemswell group as part of Project Emily, the US-UK deployment of intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) on 20 sites in the east of England. 4 years later Thor was phased out and this site quickly returned to agricultural use.

English Heritage have a very informative advice report that gives more historical detail. It concludes as the site is so eroded, it won't be listed.

From the air we can see the tell-tail signs of a Thor site, specifically three cross-shaped hard-standings in a triangular arrangement, with two L-shaped blast walls at the intersection of each cross.

This diagram helps explain the function of the parts that are left, though as no L-shaped blast wall is shown, it doesn't seem to be an exact representation of this particular site.

The emplacements were found deserted with evidence of recent poultry production and fly-tipping. In the photo below a blast wall is on the right. The missile would have laid in a shelter where the shed is now.

Another blast wall with dumped junk

According to the diagram, this concrete trough could have been the liquid oxygen overflow basin

Looking into one of the sheds - nothing of interest except the remaining hard standing.

A locked auxiliary building - perhaps fire related.

More old poultry sheds. Unable to tell whether they ever had RAF use.

Thanks for reading- stand by for part 3!

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!

Country house revisit

As per the last report, Firbeck Hall near Rotherham is in a state of disrepair. The less eventful follow up visit confirmed how severe this is. Here are some internals.

Ground Floor

Cellar

First Floor

The Sun, February 1986

Internal courtyard

There's also a stable block where a dog was chained, it didn't bark.

Thanks for reading. Here's a YouTube video montage.