Monument record 0801000000 - SE of Dorcas Farm: WW2 Radio Station

Aerial photograhs taken in December 1946 show over 50 masts in field N and S of the road centred on 2 ranges of buildings, some with light and some with dark roofs (1).
Later runs of aerial photographs reveal that the masts were still in place into the 1960s (2).

Royal Air Force Stoke Hammond, a Second World War and Cold War telecommunications station is visible on historic aerial photographs and was mapped as part of the North Buckinghamshire Aerial Investigation and Mapping project (EBC18304). Located on Dorcas Lane and centred at SP 86823 29086, RAF Stoke Hammond was constructed in 1942, coming into service in March 1943. It was one of three units (along with the Government Code & Cypher School at nearby Bletchley Park and RAF Greatworth) under the RAF’s No.26 (Signals) Group, called 372 Wireless Unit. Bletchley Park used the RAF base as its key wireless receiving station and final collection point for highly secret coded messages being sent by various intelligence and resistance groups across the world. As the Second World War ended and the Cold War began, the RAF base remained operational as a classified wireless network terminal, with the capacity of its wireless receiver buildings doubled until it finally ceased operations and closed in 1973. In 1946 aerial photographs record the small RAF base comprising an access road from Dorcas Lane with a guardhouse at the entrance, leading to a large rectangular building that served as the wireless transmitter receiving station, serviced by a surrounding group of small buildings and infrastructure and bounded by barbed wiring on at least three sides. Three (asbestos) buildings served as airmens’ quarters, whilst other buildings were for the sergeants mess, airmens’ mess, ablutions block, administrative office, storehouses and workshops. Limited accommodation was provided on site for RAF personnel, many of whom were transported from RAF Church Green in Milton Keynes. In the fields around the base there are about 75 high frequency receiver masts, some towers constructed of timber up to 90 feet in height and others made of tubular steel. Other base structures include a Mechanical and Electrical (M&E) plinth, boiler houses, stand by set house, bicycle shed and fuel compounds. A probable emergency water supply tank was located some way from the buildings, along with a possible earth-covered air raid shelter. By 1959, the Cold War RAF base had changed considerably. Many of the wartime buildings and ancillary structures had been demolished and only their concrete bases remained visible. Sixty of the wartime era masts had been demolished by 1959 but twenty seven new masts had also been constructed in various locations across the base and a further twenty three erected by 1962. The wartime office hut remained extant and a new 32 x 7.5 metres rectangular building that served as the w/t receiving station was constructed about 40 metres north of the former buildings, which was extended at each end to 44 metres by 1962. By 1973 when the RAF base closed, about eighteen wartime and forty-four post-war masts remained extant, though all were demolished by 1993. Of the wartime base, only the access road, the mechanical & electrical (M&E) plinth and the sewage works filter bed remains extant. Of the Cold War base, the extended w/t receiving station building remains extant, thought has since been modified. The site is now a small commercial/industrial estate (3-11).