swannington airfield today
This image shows an original watercolour entitled “Haveringland Homecoming”. It was painted by Rory Kent to commemorate the 70th Anniversary of the closure of RAF Swannington. Copyright: Haveringland Parish Church.
It is more than 70 years since the Swannington Airfield was closed. However the past is still tangible. Although most of the former airfield is on private land, there are a number of places where you can stand on a little bit of history.
Some of the runways and perimeter tracks, which once shuddered with the roar of aircraft engines, have been reduced in size, others torn up and returned to agricultural use. Much of the remaining concrete is cracked, covered with a patchwork of grass and moss. In just a few places it adjoins a public highway and you can step back in time.
There are many ghosts of the past. Some former airfield buildings have been repaired and repurposed, others crumble gradually into piles of anonymous rubble, as nature gradually reclaims them. Nissan huts have been replaces replaced with brambles and thistles. But, given the right conditions, former buildings sometimes appear as “crop circles”.
Ghosts of the past – the former bomb fuzing station, sergeants mess and squash court. None of these buildings remain today.
Haveringland Hall, once home to RAF Officers, has been demolished, the clock tower and stable block are the only reminders of the great mansion. Across the great park, instead of ancillary buildings there are Park Homes and Holiday Cabins.
The Parish Church of St Peter, still stands proudly beside one of the former aircraft dispersal points, like a ship in a sea of fields.
This is a landscape full of echoes of the past, where memories are whispered in the wind.
Use the button below to see Richard Flagg’s comprehensive collection of photos of Swannington Airfield as it is now:
take off
Recent photo of the runway. St. Nicholas Church is in the far distance.
From the local roads, you can still see similar views to those that the air crew would have seen from their Mosquitoes.
Given a favourable wind, in front of you is the church of St. Nicholas in Brandiston; on your right is the church of St Peter in Haveringland; behind is the hangar; on the left is the machine gun and cannon range.
The roar of the Rolls Royce engines increases as you thunder down the runway and take off between St Nicholas Church and the technical area. Up and over Cawston, banking right, heading towards the coast.
On the return journey you fly in over Haveringland Hall to touch down just past St. Peter’s Church and taxi back to the hangars.
The De Haviland Mosquito
Here is a link to a video by the Imperial War Museums about the Mosquito aircraft which flew from RAF Swannington.
Haveringland Chronicles 