| Summary : A Royal Air Force radar station used to detect approaching enemy aircraft during the Second World War, the plots from a number of such stations together would then be evaluated by the Sector Operations Filter Officers and Controllers to direct fighters to intercept them. This was either a Chain Home or a Chain Home Low station. Chain Home stations commonly comprised transmission and receiver blocks, four 240ft timber receiver aerial towers, four 350ft steel transmitter aerial towers that stood on concrete pads, and other buildings such as dispersed accommodation huts, guard huts and standby set houses. From 1940 defensive measures were installed at radar stations, including Light Anti-Aircraft gun emplacements, pill boxes, road blocks and air raid shelters. The remains of the station comprise two substantial concrete bases for wooden mast, the demolished structures that were the Receiver and Transmitter Bunkers and several concrete pads, formerly the sites of the administration and the guard buildings. A single anti-aircraft gun emplacement lies to the north of the site. |
More information : A World War 2 Chain Home Low Radar station sited on the SW margin of Shaugh Moor overlooking Plymouth, some 10km distant. The principal features of the site are the footings of two masts, the remains of two bunkers and of two air raid shelters and the concrete pads for the duty room, the guard room and the administration buildings.
The transmitting and the receiving masts, now removed, were each set on four large, tapering concrete blocks up to 1.0m high: these survive in good condition. Some 25m south-west of these bases are the badly damaged remains of a Transmitter Bunker and a Receiver Bunker; they were probably demolished by explosives. Both bunkers appear to be identical in form: they were single roomed of breeze-block construction with a concrete roof and set partly below ground each with two access points. Between the bunkers is a large, square revetted platform probably the site of a prefabricated structure serving as a duty room. The guardroom with adjacent dog pens lay at the west end of the site with the administration and toilet buildings immediately to the north. Between the mast bases is a concrete stance that apparently housed a generator. The two brick and concrete air raid shelters have also apparetly been badly damaged by explosives; one is in a dangerous condition.
A metalled track leading from the Wotter to Shaugh Prior road serviced the site and the base of a guard hut lies near the junction. The four corners of the station are marked by low amorphous mounds containing slit trenches; these were originally linked by rolls of barbed wire .
A small circular earthwork immediately north-west of the site probably housed an anti - aircraft gun that served as the station's air defences.
Surveyed at 1:2500 scale (1 - 2)
A Chain Home radar station located at Hawkstor (SX 551 623), known as CH15M. It was established by 18-APR-1941. Chain Home stations commonly comprised transmission and receiver blocks, four 240ft timber receiver aerial towers, four 350ft steel transmitter aerial towers that stood on concrete pads, and other buildings such as dispersed accommodation huts, guard huts and standby set houses. From 1940 defensive measures were installed at radar stations, including Light Anti-Aircraft gun emplacements, pill boxes, road blocks and air raid shelters. (5)
A Chain Home station at Hawkstor. This was an Advanced Chain Home station. Aerial photography from 1998 shows that the bases of two aerial towers survive at the site, as do the bases of the buildings. (6)
A survey report from 1998 on the archaeology of Shaugh Moor, by the RCHME, contains a useful summary of the physical remains of the installation, including a basic site map. However pp14-15 does include some doubtful interpretation of the precise function of the installation, and is now best read together with the comments from source 8 below. (7)
Letter from Curator of Documents, the Royal Air Force Air Defence Radar Museum, Neatishead. The installation at Hawk's Tor was part of the West Coast network of Chain Home stations, and was designed from the outset to be a reporting radar station, rather than independently controlling aircraft. The actual control function over fighters took place at Sector Operations Rooms using plots generated by multiple Chain Home stations. The Home Chain network thus worked by providing overlapping areas of coverage, rather than providing actual direct control over small areas. The controllers at Sector Operations Sector based decisions on the overall picture provided by the stations via their Filter Officer and would not necessarily know in which radar station's area a given aircraft would be. (8)
|