Perranporth

[Resmoroh]

Can I assume (always a dangerous thing!!) that Trevellas Airfield was what Perranporth was originally known as?
TIA
Resmoroh

[Carnaby]

Can I assume that Trevellas Airfield was what Perranporth was originally known as?

Action Stations mentions that this was the local name for the station. Airfields of SW England (Teague and White) states '...it was originally known as Trevallas'. Hmm ! Nothing official found anywhere.

Off topic. however a TNA search revealed that an Admiralty Experimental Station was built at Perranporth. e.g.

Submarine detection trials with long broad band transmissions: a summary of the Perranporth 1kHz experiments
Corsair Experiments (Any ideas?)

From a web page - ...after St Ives the weather improved but the hills did not. Up and down, up and down until I was starting to feel quite seasick. And weary. Finally we pulled into the Youth Hostel at Perranporth. The situation of the Hostel is fabulous, perched on the cliffs overlooking the beach.

The building was once the Admiralty Experimental Station built in the 1950’s. It was a secret research programme called Project Lioness which studied the development of shore based submarine detection. It was opened as a hostel in 1982.

It's here

Graham

[Resmoroh]

My interest was excited by the discovery on the DOBDA overlay on GE of a WW2 Auxiliary Unit base near Perranporth:

Location: Trevellas Airfield, nitro glycerine tunnels.

Condition: Good

Description: 1997/04/14 Auxiliary Unit 'hideout' used by the Perranporth Unit. Constructed in old nitro-glycerine tunnels to E of Trevellas Airfield. This had to be abandoned when found by local school children. [Information from ex-members of Auxiliary Units - Trevor Miners (Perranporth) and John Greet (St. Agnes)].

I regret I have no ideas about the 1kHz experiments to detect submarines from on land - except that 1kHz is (VV)VLF!! The aerials would have had to have been vast! - where were they?
HTH
Resmoroh

[Carnaby]

From various sources: The British and Colonial Explosives Factory was established in 1889 and covered an area of 110 acres at St George's Common, Cligga Head. Work commenced in 1891 and an application for extra magazines is recorded in 1901. In 1892 the Nobel family bought the works. At its height, 3 tons of nitroglycerine was produced per day, but by 1905 declining local demand for explosives and increased competition resulted in the plant being put on a care and maintenance basis in 1905. In 1915 it returned to production manufacturing munitions. It closed after the war and the plant was mothballled in the 1920s. The site became an airfield in WWII, however it seems that the factory was re-opened during WW2 for the production of munitions.

Graham

[Richard Drew]

Cligga Mine from http://www.atlantikwall.co.uk/atlant...tml/page01.htm

As there is no signature Richard

[Richard Drew]

Another picture

[Resmoroh]

And further to my last, the Admiralty Experimental Establishment at Perranporth was, supposedly, investigating submarine detection from the land by using 1kHz SONAR (not RADAR).
HTH
Resmoroh

[airfields man]

A copy from the Airmail September 2003.

[EGDGZTCW]

Perranporth celebrated it's 70th birthday yesterday and had small open day for visitors. There were model flying displays, r/c car racing, various sport cars and motor bikes, military vehicles and my friends exhibition Spitfire. Unfortunately, it was so windy that we couldn't unload the Spitfire from the trailer and one of the model aircraft came to grief quite spectacularly as they tried to launch it. But it stayed dry for everyone and it was nice to meet some new faces and catch up with some old friends.

A new paint job for Perranporth tower......the chap stood on his own in the white cap with his back to the wall was a Spitfire engineer during the war. He spent time at Tangmere and Perranporth.

[CornwallPhil]

The Admiralty Experimental Station at Perranporth is just below the site of the current youth hostel nestled on the cliff. Photographs taken 11 June 2011.
Perranporth Admiralty Experimental Station 2.jpg
View looking east back towards Perranporth beach
Perranporth Admiralty Experimental Station 1.jpg
View looking west, station seems to have been built on two levels
Perranporth Admiralty Experimental Station 3.jpg
View looking north. This would have been an interesting place to be when the winter storms were raging!!!