Monument record MBC44931 - Second World War Royal Air Force camp, Site No.7 (WAAF), RAF Turweston

A Second World War Royal Air Force camp, Site No.7 (WAAF) at RAF Turweston, is visible on historic aerial photographs and was mapped as part of the North Buckinghamshire Aerial Investigation and Mapping project (EBC18304). Located in a field about 330 metres ENE of Dropshort Farm and centred at SP 62670 39448, Site No.7 (Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF)) was one of 8 satellite camps for military personnel serving at adjacent RAF Turweston, an operational wartime military airfield. The camp comprised airwomens’ barrack huts, sergeants’ and officers’ quarters, officers’ mess, ablution blocks, latrines, sentry post, a mechanical and electrical (M&E) plinth which acted as an electrical transformer/junction box, a hairdresser shop, earth-covered air raid shelters, an earth-protected brick-built open blast shelter, all accessed by a road and network of pathways. Aerial photographs taken in 1973 show that most of the buildings had been demolished, though the concrete platform foundations remained visible. Only the air raid shelters, blast shelter, hairdressers, bath house and ablutions remain extant. The blast shelter is demolished by 1988 and the remaining buildings by 2000. Aerial photographs taken in 2019 show that the remaining pathways have been demolished, but that the three earth-covered air raid shelters remain visible in the pasture field (1-6).