RAF Upwood

Guardhouse

The Guardhouse was located right at the front of the site and was used for Ramsey 1940's weekends right up to 2010. It had a small cell and we did actually find the cell door with the bars still on the window, but it was on the floor! There are plans to restore it rather than demolish, but we'll see what happens.

Headquarters

The Headquarters was located right at the front of the site, adjacent to the Guardhouse. After 3 visits I still discovered new things in this building, most notably was the Operations board in one of the back rooms and the telephone exchange room. This was an interesting explore with various floors and we managed to climb out onto the roof to take in the view of the site. These pictures were taken March & May 2020.

NAAFI and Ration Store

This building sat slap bang in the middle of the site with the parade ground directly in front with a brick built sign to the right of the building as you look at it. This seemed to be the centrepiece of the site so I guess lots of activities went on here - the windows were huge and grand and the large rooms had huge picture frames mounted on the walls between each window. Incidentally, NAAFI stands for Navy Army and Air Force Institutes. Right behind the NAFFI was the Ration Store.

Officer's Mess & Accomodation Blocks

The Officer's Mess and Accomodation blocks are essentially two buildings joined together with a corridor. The Mess building has a lovely grand entrance built with three arches as its centrepiece, and inside is a rabbit warren of rooms and corridors. We ended up going round in circles at one point! We discovered a bar area, loads of toilet blocks, the ballroom and cinema and other large rooms. We managed to get up onto the roof which allowed us to see quite a lot but it was fairly precarious in places. It overlooked the new housing estate adjacent to the site and which RAF Upwood will sadly soon become. This is one of my favorite buildings on site, it's very grand and the large open rooms are amazing - one actually echoed even though the windows had been removed. I didn't take too many pictures in the accomodation block as each room was very "samey". The block is built into an "E" shape with long corridors and rooms for each person. Very private compared to the barracks.

Airmen's Mess

This building was fascinating. It had a lovely front reception area with a grand entrance leading to a large dining area and associated kitchens, store rooms, servery and serving hatches. The large ovens were still in place, set into the wall of the kitchen, presumably the reason they were still there. The extractor hood was also still in place. Another of my favorite buildings. The pictures in this section were taken in March 2020.

Sergeant's Mess

This building wasn't quite so grand as the Airmen's and Officer's Mess buildings, but still a good explore. These pictures were taken in February and March 2020.

Sick Quarters, Gas De-Contamination and Ambulance buildings

The Sick Quarters was joined by a corridor with led into the Gas Decontamination block 1. It was built because of the threat of gas attacks during World War 1 looming over the base. Both Decontamination blocks had washing facilities, clothes chutes for contaminated clothing, an air lock to the entrance at the rear with a blast wall in front. In block number 2 there was a row of showers for emergency washing and both blocks were pitch black inside. Good job we had our torches with us! The Ambulance station and mortuary building was located right outside Gas Decon number 2 building.

Main Stores and MT Section

The main stores had three unloading bays which were built above ground to match the height of the vehicles' unloading bays (usually arriving from an RAF Equipment Depot). Inside here, items would be manhandled off the vehicles, sorted, logged and moved into storage. Technical and non-technical items were stored in this building, such as aero-engine and MT (Motor Transport) spares, barrack furniture and clothing. The ramps allowed easy maneuvering of large boxes and items down the slopes to ground level. All the windows were heavily barred – presumably to prevent theft. It also had two rooms where someone would've slept overnight. There was also a large room where it is assumed maintenance repairs would've taken place. Large enough to accomodate vehicles.

Airfield

The airfield was firstly used as a night-landing ground and satellite field during the first world war. It was then expanded for the second world war with permanent buildings on site and was used for two bomber squadrons and then the Bristol Blenheims and was mainly used for training purposes. The grass airfield was replaced with three concrete runways in 1943 with Lancasters being used to attack Stuttgart in 1944. During the cold war era Lancasters, B-24's, Canberra's, Lincolns and Mosquitos among others were all flown from Upwood on various missions until 1963 when all flying from the base was stopped. The USAF took over the site in 1981 and was a satellite station of RAF Alconbury. Just one runway remains today.

Central Heating and Boilerhouse buildings

We didn't have the energy to climb to the top of the Central Heating tower, but we did make it to the first floor!

Water Tower and Air Ministry Works Dept

We didn't manage to venture up this tower at all. There was a dodgy looking ladder roped to the first floor railings and not securely footed on the floor. We stared at it for ages contemplating whether to go up or not and decided against it. Then as soon as we left the site we regretted it! Sadly this is the first section of the site to be demolished so as I write this in June 2020 there's no going back.

Community Centre

This is located just past the Guardhouse. I think sheep must've been housed here once upon a time given all the fleece, poo and straw in some of the rooms! This building boasts the only surviving toilet on the site. It had a reception area, a sports hall/gym with changing rooms and a bar.

Barrack Blocks

The site has two different types of barrack blocks, H-style and R-style, and two later addition barrack blocks at the top of the site near the airstrip. Each style is very different in layout and building fabrics, with Barrack Block Number 4 being the most noticeably different due to its pitched roof - the only one on site. Most of the H blocks have underground air raid shelters, and all blocks have large open plan sleeping quarters. They are obviously all in various states of ruin, decay and vandalism as you can see from my pictures. In order to make sense of which building is which, I numbered the blocks in reference to my map below. Unfortunately on all 4 visits to this place I still managed to miss out Blocks 8 and 10! These pics were taken on a variety of visits between Oct 2019 and May 2020.