Another mini-report from me. This one finishing off the good work of @huey who recently got this site 99% covered in his detailed report here
Well it seems that Huey is not one for getting high and he sent me a few emails telling me of a tower at the airfield that needs climbing. Me being a bit stupid took up the challenge of a long rusty wobbly ladder.
History
Can't really add to Huey's history, save to say that RAF Kemble was built in the 1930s, also used by the Americans, and was home of the Red Arrows from 1966 to 1983. In recent years it has been the privately owned civilian Cotswold Airport. A large aircraft decommissioning company is based here and many planes in various stages of decommissioning can be seen.
Since Huey's report went up it has been announced that there are plans to build a huge housing estate on the airport. About 2000 homes in total. This will of course mean closure of the airport. BBC report here. I suppose it was inevitable that this was going to happen, the council has had numerous noise pollution complaints against the airport in recent years.
The Visit
Not sure what this building was, but I going to guess it's the incinerator for the old RAF Kemble
And inside we see one wobbly rusty ladder. I wonder why huey wasn't tempted? Guessing it's about 25m high. From the bottom I can see that there is some sort of room at the top.
Let's start climbing
And through the hatch to the small room at the top
I was wetting myself with excitement at this point. I had swapped many emails to plan for this occasion and driven miles out of my way to see this. So what's here......
*drum roll*
.......... (let's keep the suspense for a bit longer)
.......... (are we excited?)
err there's just a poo-covered gas cylinder up here
and err a dead woodpigeon. I assume the last person up here whacked it with a big stick for shitting on the gas cylinder. Or maybe it got so bored depressed up here he hung himself with the rope
There's a second very short ladder here that leads to a hatch and out onto the roof. But it was locked.
So with nothing to do I looked out of the window and thought to myself "why?"
Mr A J Fridge (spelling?) was here in May 1941 and was probably too wondering why he bothered
Mr G Chew and H Parker came here in 1956
Having entertained myself for all of 10 seconds, it was time to head back down
Apologies for boring you. Must try harder.
Well it seems that Huey is not one for getting high and he sent me a few emails telling me of a tower at the airfield that needs climbing. Me being a bit stupid took up the challenge of a long rusty wobbly ladder.
History
Can't really add to Huey's history, save to say that RAF Kemble was built in the 1930s, also used by the Americans, and was home of the Red Arrows from 1966 to 1983. In recent years it has been the privately owned civilian Cotswold Airport. A large aircraft decommissioning company is based here and many planes in various stages of decommissioning can be seen.
Since Huey's report went up it has been announced that there are plans to build a huge housing estate on the airport. About 2000 homes in total. This will of course mean closure of the airport. BBC report here. I suppose it was inevitable that this was going to happen, the council has had numerous noise pollution complaints against the airport in recent years.
The Visit
Not sure what this building was, but I going to guess it's the incinerator for the old RAF Kemble
And inside we see one wobbly rusty ladder. I wonder why huey wasn't tempted? Guessing it's about 25m high. From the bottom I can see that there is some sort of room at the top.
Let's start climbing
And through the hatch to the small room at the top
I was wetting myself with excitement at this point. I had swapped many emails to plan for this occasion and driven miles out of my way to see this. So what's here......
*drum roll*
.......... (let's keep the suspense for a bit longer)
.......... (are we excited?)
err there's just a poo-covered gas cylinder up here
and err a dead woodpigeon. I assume the last person up here whacked it with a big stick for shitting on the gas cylinder. Or maybe it got so bored depressed up here he hung himself with the rope
There's a second very short ladder here that leads to a hatch and out onto the roof. But it was locked.
So with nothing to do I looked out of the window and thought to myself "why?"
Mr A J Fridge (spelling?) was here in May 1941 and was probably too wondering why he bothered
Mr G Chew and H Parker came here in 1956
Having entertained myself for all of 10 seconds, it was time to head back down
Apologies for boring you. Must try harder.
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