Monument record 0660600000 - Westcott Airfield and Royal Ordnance Site

World War 2 airfield used by Bomber Command for Operational Training Unit No 11 (No 11 OTU) from Sept. 1942 and Electronic Countermeasures Development Unit 92 Group. Involved in Operation Exodus (repatriation of prisoners of war from Europe in 1945). No 11 OTU disbanded 03/Aug/1945. Airfield placed under Care and Maintenance until April 1946. (B1-2).
Guided Projectile Establishment (later Rocket Propulsion Department) set up on site by Ministry of Supply to study rocket propulsion. Linked to Royal Gunpowder Factory, Waltham Abbey. Became Rocket Propulsion Establishment in 1958. Later merged in 1973 with Waltham Abbey site and further reorganisation in 1977 created the Propellants, Explosives and Rocket Motor Establishment (PERME). Sites split in 1984 in lead up to privatisation of Royal Ordnance, Westcott passing to Royal Ordnance; further details (B3-4).
MPP Cold War remains assessment (B5).
See report(s) for building details (B11-13).
Article tracing the development of the first British liquid fuel rocket motor, affectionately called 'Lizzy', originally designed as an assisted take-off unit for the Wellington bomber (B14).

A Second World War military airfield, Royal Air Force Wescott, and a Cold War rocket test facility, is visible on historic aerial photographs and remote sensing data and was mapped as part of the Aylesbury Vale Aerial Investigation and Mapping project (EBC18604). Centred at SP 70935 16872, The airfield is bounded on its western side by a dismantled railway line, off which a branch formerly led to serve the
airfield and later the post-war research establishment. The northern side is
bounded by the A41 (Banbury and Aylesbury) road. RAF Weston was used to train bomber aircrews during the Second World War. The airfield was built for the Royal Air Force in 1941-42, fully opened in September 1942 and hosting No 11 Operational Training Unit (OTU) with Wellington bombers. At the war’s end in 1945, RAF Westcott became a clearing centre as part of ‘Operation Exodus’, repatriating about 35,000-50,000 former allied prisoners of war to the UK. Westcott closed in 1946 and was transferred to the Ministry of Supply. The airfield then became an important centre for ballistic and guided-missile rocket propulsion testing until 1984, being variously known as Guided Projectile Establishment, Rocket Propulsion Establishment, the Propellants, Explosives and Rocket Motor Establishment (PERME). The sites were then split on the privatisation of Royal Ordnance and was sold to British Aerospace. Today the former airfield is Westcott Venture Park, providing industrial and office premises, whilst the former runways are the site of a solar farm.

RAF Weston Site No.1 is a ‘Class A’ airfield, comprises three intersecting concrete runways (two being 1,240 metres long and the third SW-NE aligned being 1,540 metres long), linked by a perimeter track, off which are 30 frying pan-type dispersals. The technical site is centred on the SW facing side of the airfield (but falls outside of the scope of this project’s boundary). The airfield was supported by one B1 and four T2 type aircraft hangars. The B1 hangar was not present on the 1943 dated aerial photographs but had been built between 1943 and 1947. Other airfield sites included aviation petrol and bulk oil installations, pyrotechnic stores. Speech broadcasting building, squadron offices, airmens barracks, RAF and WAAF personnel latrines, night flying kitchen, defence officers quarters and latrines, operations block, station offices (aka SHQ), works services yard and buildings, maintenance blocks, airfield construction offices, gas defence centre, various storehouses, armouries, various workshops, MT sheds and offices, photographic block, clusters of brick-built, open-topped and earth bermed blast shelters and earth-buried air raid stanton shelters, an electricity sub-station and M&E plinths, all connected by a road and pathway system. On aerial photographs taken in 2023, one of the runways has been returned to grassland and most of the dispersals have either been demolished or built upon. The perimeter track and road system remain intact, as does the B2 aircraft hangar, although most of the remaining wartime buildings and structures mapped have been demolished. The Cold War era rocket test facilities remain mostly intact (23-37).