Site Records

Site Name: RAF Chenies ('HAM') R8 GCI ROTOR Radar Station

Chenies Hill
Chenies, Hertfordshire
OS Grid Ref: TQ015997

Sub Brit site visit 10th November 2004

The R8 building has been redundant for many years. It was last used in the mid 1990's as a sports facility for the RAF with the two level operations room adapted as a games hall.

In the summer of 2004 the station was listed for disposal. The Strike Command radio station had closed and the mast has now been sold to NTL. This is already in its own secure compound and will remain in use, as will the Met. Office radar station which will be enclosed within another new compound. As part of the sale agreement the R8 structure must be demolished by the new owner. It is now the only remaining R8 building in anything like complete original condition. A section of the R8 at Wick still survives in industrial use while all the other R8 structures have been demolished although they all leave some evidence of their existence. Because it is now a unique building there have been numerous suggestions that it should be listed. Under current legislation however English Heritage are unable to list prefabricated structures so even though this is the only remaining example of this building there is no way it can be saved.

When visited in October 2004 the R8 was deteriorating badly. Although the structure is still intact it has been derelict since the mid 1990's and has been subjected to ongoing vandalism over many years. All the entrance doors have been boarded up but a number of holes have been knocked through the outer walls to gain access to the inside of the building. As fast as the holes in the wall have been boarded over by the RAF a new one appears. The main entrance into the structure is on the north side which gives access into one of two spine corridors. Above the door there was a grey rotor sign saying 'Main Entrance for all ranks' (This has been recovered to RAF Holmpton). At one end of the corridor are the domestic rooms with a small kitchen with serving hatches into the RAF & WRAF rest rooms. The male and female toilets on the opposite side of the corridor are all intact although the WC pans have been filled with sand.

The two level operations room is also accessed from this corridor. Wooden steps lead up to the tote gallery, the metal Mission Tote panels (showing Anti Aircraft state, weather conditions etc) were all still intact at the time of our visit but have now been dismantled for reassembly in the ops. room at RAF Holmpton (Museum) in Yorkshire. The operations room was originally overlooked by the four intercept cabins and the chief controller's cabin. All these cabins originally had sloping glass windows but the three windows at the back were removed and bricked up when the ops. room was converted into a sports hall. The two side windows (Intercept Cabin 2 & 3) are still there but the glass has been painted over.

Half way along the spine corridor stairs lead up to a second spine corridor in the raised section of the building. From here there is access to the intercept cabins, chief controller's cabin and fighter marshal's cabin, all of which are empty. There are further steps into the chief controller's cabin. On the opposite side of this corridor is the largest room in the bunker, the radar workshop and radar office. This is where all the radar equipment cabinets would have been housed. The position of the equipment racks is still clearly visible on the floor and the metal trunking for cooling the equipment is still suspended from the ceiling. A small cooling fan is still in place at one end of the room alongside a window into the adjacent supervisors room which has a wooden dais where the supervisor would have sat in a raised position and a small electrical cabinet on the wall that controlled the power to the building; the standby generator could have been brought into use from here. On the far side of the room there are double doors leading out to an open air raised platform with a concrete ramp and stairs. This was used for bringing heavy equipment into the building. A now demolished ventilation plant room was sited against this platform and its concrete base is still visible.

At the end of the upper level corridor, stairs lead down to the rear entrance and three further rooms. One of these housed further radar equipment and the other two were the GPO apparatus room which has a tiled floor and the frame room with some electrical switchgear and part of the main distribution frame (MDF) still in place.

Several brick buildings are still standing around the R8. These include the sub station, high frequency switch house, standby set house with fuel compound, sewage ejectors, water tank and pump house. Most of these buildings still have their grey ROTOR signs screwed to the wall. A now demolished SECO guardhouse would have stood just inside the main gate although there is no evidence of it now. There is also no sign of dog kennels that are normally found at ROTOR stations.

The standby set house still contains a large diesel generator, small fuel tank, switchgear and a large floor standing electrical control cabinet.

The double doors have been ripped off the building by vandals and it is open to the elements. The high frequency switch house is divided into three rooms each accessed through external doors. The two end rooms were open and one of these still contains a large mains transformer. The sub station was locked and is still in use providing power for the NTL mast and the Met Office radar. A small modern brick building at one end of the R8 housed the radio equipment for the Strike Command communications facility but the building is now empty and NTL's radio equipment is now housed in a smaller newer building close to the base of the mast within a compound. Close to the Met. Office radar station there is a square building, obviously from the ROTOR period and alongside it the truncated base for the AN/FPS3 radar gantry. This building was almost certainly the AN/FPS3 equipment room.

AN/FPS3 Radar

5 radar plinths are to be found in the surrounding fields, these would have been for the Type 13 and Type 14 radars. Four of the plinths would have had the radar mounted on the roof; these have an octagonal hole in the roof where the radar was mounted. The fifth plinth has a solid concrete roof. The radar here would have been mounted on a 25' gantry alongside. Close by there are four concrete bases for an aerial tower, it is unclear what this was for but it probably belongs to a later period. A number of other mast guying blocks are scattered around the site, these two probably belong to a later use for the site.

To the south of the R8 there is a grassed mound with stairs going up to this. This is the sewage tank for the station.

RAF Chenies was sold back to the original landowner in November 2004, the majority of the buildings on the site will be demolished and the land returned to agriculture.

Sources:

• PRO files: Air 8/1630 Air 2/10984 Air 8/2032 Appendix C Air2/11178
• Bob Jenner
• Dr. James Fox

For further photos of RAF Chenies click here

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