North Creake

[REF]

Photo of the murial sent to me by Fred Pearce

[SimonGee]

Had a pre-visit look at Creake's RSP last night and noticed a BHQ ( 11008/41 ) listed. No specific location, but anyone out there seen it - ?

[PETERTHEEATER]

Re Post 22 et al on the 'mystery structures' .

Are they similar to these Bofors ammunition lockers at Llanbedr (I can't locate this image on AiX and I apologise to the photographer/owner for not being able to link to the image instead)

[Shadow1]

Hi Peter - No - the small buildings I have been talking about seem to be about twice the size of the Bofors ammo locker in the picture you posted. The structure in your picture looks to be about 10 courses of brick tall but the buildings at Creake are twice that height. Also they are not partitioned. Here is another shot of one more of the structures at N.Creake :

Small Building - North Creake-(3).jpg

I'm not sure if it is at all significant but in the same areas as these little buildings there is a pile of what I can only dedcribe as concrete sand-bags. They look like boulders at first glance but thet are definitely sacks that have been filled with concrete which has then set in the shape of the sack. You can see the pattern of the hessian on the surface of some of them.

Concrete Sand Bags - North Creake.jpg Concrete Sand Bag - North Creake.jpg

I wondered if they might have been part of some sort of temporary machine gun position but, as usual, really have no idea.

[PETERTHEEATER]

First of all I made an error in my Post # 44 which should have read Llanbedr NOT Llandwrog. I have now corrected it.

OK. I still reckon they are RU ammo stores and being larger that the Llanbedr types were probably for a larger gun.

Those cement filled sandbags are not unusual (to me) I have found many in my previous travels usually as part of defensive positions. An 'old soldier' told me that sometimes, if cement was available, they would add some to the filling of the sandbags and - after building up the courses of the 'wall' would water them (or leave it to the rain) when it would harden. We know that compacted sand has a measurable resistance to the penetration of small arms bullets dependent on the thickness but whether adding cement increases the resistance I'm not sure. In my experience it could have unwanted effects such as spalling.

[Shadow1]

I've managed to get hold of a copy of the locally published "Brief History of RAF North Creake" which was written by the late Len Bartram. Having had a read through this facinating little booklet I think it may shed some further light on the group of small buildings (ammunition lockers) close to Egmere Farm. To quote Mr Bartram :

"The first military presence's in the area during the war was when during 1940 the 57th Heavy Newfoundland Regiment of the Royal Artillery moved from Sussex to Norfolk for costal defence duties against an expected enemy invasion. Part of D Battery with two giant 9.2 inch howitzers of World War One vintage were set up in positions close to Egmere farm. The target area for these guns covered the sea approaches to Wells and Holkham, their stay in Norfolk lasted 16 months..... Practice firings were limited because of the risk of blast damage to any buildings near the gun positions.

A British army regiment occupied the Egmere site for a time after the Newfoundlanders left for overseas"

From the above it would seem possible the buildings that remain at Egmere may have been put there by the Army and may pre-date the airfield. This said elsewhere in the Len Bartram account there is also mention of an Army light ack ack regiment detachment being based at the airfield and equipped with Bofors guns so perhaps they were also sited at Egmere farm.

[PETERTHEEATER]

Thanks Shadow 1, then it is possible that the 'lockers' were used to store the charges fro the 9.9 inch guns. The shell weighed 290 pounds (130+ kgs) and it would not have been practicable to hump them in and out of such stores. The propelling charge was separate to the shell.

I still reckon they are for Bofors. The arc layout would lend itself to servicing guns(s) with a 360 degree capability rather than those laid to fire seawards.

[ianbache]

Here's a image of the aircraft that is in the mural

[ianbache]

Brilliant Ian, any idea where the aircraft was in the film? Which film was it?

Sorry for any confusion Richard, i meant on photo film, not a moving film, Taken in 1944,
Regards Ian

[Nigel Morter]

Hello!

We moved into the Control Tower at North Creake last October and are currently renovating it. We posted some info on AiX when we first moved in but as we've been distracted by all the work we're doing we've not been back on for a while. We were sorry to see that some of you might have visited North Creake last winter... if anyone is in the area again please drop us a line thecontroltower@phonecoop.coop or just knock!

We have three airfield buildings on the site. The Control Tower (12779/41); an Air Raid Shelter (AS50) and a Speech Broadcast Building (10786/41)

We would really like to hear if any of you have historical photos of the airfield as they are not proving easy to get hold of. We are trying to create a timeline of activity here so any illustration would be fantastic.

Our ultimate aim with the tower and gardens is to open up as a B&B and Tea Garden. We'd like to use the Speech Broadcast Building as a mini museum for North Creake. If any of you have been past recently you'll see that we have a lot of work to do to get to that stage!

The works so far... removal of 150 Leylandii trees, taking off cedar shingles off the top half of the tower, removing rows of sheds, taking up a large concrete yard (was a wood yard), removing the exterior steps to be repaired (to be put back up) and levelling the grounds. We have been trying to create some space around the tower as it was squashed with lots of clutter around it. We want to tower to look like a control tower again (as much as it can while being our home) and to make the most of its history.

We have joined the 100 Group Association and were privileged enough to meet some veterans a few weeks ago. This was a wonderful experience – we feel very welcomed into this family. A couple of the members managed to get over to see us here which was really great.

If any of you are on Facebook we have set up a site to document what we’re up to – if you are interested have a look and ‘like’ us on http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Co...85585778171932

Best wishes,
Claire and Nigel