Site Records

Site Name: RAF Dunkirk - Chain Home Radar Station

Courtenay Road
Dunkirk
Kent
OS Grid Ref: TR076595

Sub Brit site visit November 1996 & September 2004

The receiver buried reserve is located in a field a short distance to the north west. All the hatches are still in place over the main stairwell which has been filled with concrete rubble. The concrete cap on the emergency escape shaft has been broken but the shaft is flooded to within a couple of feet of the surface. The four concrete bases for the reserve receiver tower can still can be seen nearby. There is a metal bar protruding from each base to which the wooden tower leg would have been bolted.

A short distance to the north west of the receiver buried reserve there is a hexagonal concrete pit that would have housed an Oerlikon 40mm light anti aircraft gun. This is a Swiss designed gun manufactured in great numbers under licence in Great Britain during WW2. Three Lewis machine gun emplacements can also be seen along the boundary of an adjacent playing field that was built on the site of the domestic camp. Four pillboxes (two Type 22 and Two Type 24) can also still be seen close to the perimeter fence.

Photo:The Bofors Tower in Clay Pit Wood
Photo by Nick Catford

A brick and concrete Bofors tower can be found in Clay Pits Wood to the west of the receiver block. The tower, which has been listed by English Heritage, stands in a clearing in the woodland, 75 yards west of a bridleway. It has two external stairways up to the gun platform which would have mounted a Bofors gun and a Lewis gun to provide further air defence for the radar station. A hexagonal concrete plinth on the gun platform would have supported the Bofors mounting. The rooms beneath the gun platform would have been for ammunition magazines and crew quarters.

A number of other buildings survive outside the main technical site, one of these being an underground air raid shelter.

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