RAF Bawtry

RAF Bawtry
Bawtry
East side of Bawtry Hall
Site information
Owner	Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom)
Controlled by	Royal Air Force
Open to the public	No
Condition	Intact
Site history
Built	1785 (1785)
In use	1941-1986

RAF Bawtry was a Royal Air Force station located at Bawtry Hall in Bawtry, South Yorkshire, England and was No. 1 Group RAF Bomber Command headquarters and administration unit during and following the Second World War.

Bawtry Hall itself is a large redbrick house in two storeys with attics which was erected around 1785 by Pemberton Milnes, a prosperous wool-merchant from Wakefield, Yorkshire. It descended in the Milnes family for several generations before being sold to Major George Peake, a well-known amateur pilot, in 1905. It is a Grade II* listed building.

During the Second World War the RAF took it over and it became an RAF command centre. RAF Bawtry did not have its own airfield but instead took advantage of RAF Bircotes, which was located literally next-door. Here the station based a number of communications aircraft.

Bawtry Hall served the Royal Air Force from 1941–1984; first as HQ for No. 1 Group, Bomber Command during and after the Second World War, then as Strike Command HQ up to and including the later stages of the Cold War. The famous bombing of the airfield at Port Stanley by Vulcan bombers from RAF Waddington during the Falklands War was co-ordinated from the operations room at Bawtry Hall.

RAF Bawtry became the centre of the RAF Meteorological Service for many years and ceased military operations in 1986. In June 1987 Bawtry Hall was purchased by The Welbeck Estate Group.

No.1 Group Bomber Command units based at RAF Bawtry comprised as follows: -

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During the Miners' Strike in the mid-1980s, up to 17,000 Police were based at RAF Bawtry to provide a central Operations and co-ordination point on the South Yorkshire / Nottinghamshire border.