Bradwell Bay

[horrocks]

And more still! Photographed last autumn, this is at the threshold of the main, with the peritrack curve beyond. The main is almost complete at full width to its entire length. The road to the power station crosses it at the point that Denis took his photograph, (the opposite end to these shots) and for some reason a short section has been reduced in width here. The huge straw stacks shown in one of Denis's pictures are placed along the main runway. You can just make out the directional arrows on the light fitting in the first photo.





Unlike other airfields that I have visited, often far less complete than this, I found Bradwell a strangely unatmospheric place, even odder when one considers its location on the decidedly strange and remote Dengie Peninsula. I think that the immense and very ugly power station looming over it probably steals most of the atmosphere of the old airfield.

If you take the track from the village to the (very atmospheric) St.Peter on the wall, and pass through or beside the even stranger eco-commune there, you will find a very complete collection of huts that I should imagine certainly served as the garrison buildings for the pill box defenses on the sea wall that Denis photographed.

[Carnaby]

. You can just make out the directional arrows on the light fitting in the first photo.

Never understood the purpose of these. The lights were completely omnidirectional until the addition of the internal prisms in late 1944. There are some fittings at Llandow where the arrows don't line up with the runway.

Great pictures!

[Southend Spitfire]

Heres the village sign with a Mosquito featured on it.



Its around here http://www.flashearth.com/?lat=51.72....4&r=0&src=msl

[Southend Spitfire]

One of the many pillboxes in the seawall



If i can remember right i think its this one http://www.flashearth.com/?lat=51.74....1&r=0&src=msl

[Southend Spitfire]

A couple more pillboxes around the airfield near the St Peters on the Wall chapel.

http://www.flashearth.com/?lat=51.73...15&r=0&src=msl



http://www.flashearth.com/?lat=51.73....9&r=0&src=msl

[PETERTHEEATER]

Southend Spitfire,

Re your last image. At the end of the track and close to St Peter's Chapel is a timber structure on stilts used as a bird-watching OP. It is an extant Quadrant Shelter for the former Dengie Flats North practice bombing range:

http://wtp2.appspot.com/wheresthepat...z=19&oz=7&gt=1

[Denis]

The wife and I went for a walk around the seven mile route that encompasses the whole airfield today.
Took photos of the barges and the range tower Peter mentioned.
A strange place as it was extremely sunny with not a cloud in the sky. We got to the edge of the range and the sea fog rolled in without warning, and for a while all was blanketed.








Heres the range tower :



When we walked back to the car, we were walking on the old perimeter track that has been made up to service the Nuclear Power Station. I would estimate that about 20 to thirty yards away from the extent main runway edge, these metal tracks were in the ground parallel with the old runway. I think this may well be evidence of FIDO pipeline? These tracks are not that far away from a building that looks like a pumphouse on a BFI.

[norwichpaul]

when was dengie flats last used as a range?

[PETERTHEEATER]

Not absolutely sure but we (RAF Bomb Disposal) did the clearance task in 1964. So it likely closed very early '60s.

[PETERTHEEATER]

Denis, nice picture of the former Quadrant Shelter.

According Geoffrey Williams' book 'Flying through Fire' the FIDO storage tanks and pump house where in this area just off the looping (then!) perimeter track:

http://wtp2.appspot.com/wheresthepat...z=18&oz=6&gt=1

The structure which you mentioned as looking like a BFI pumphouse probably is just that here:

http://wtp2.appspot.com/wheresthepat...z=19&oz=8&gt=1