RAF Box
RAF Rudloe Manor
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| Corsham, Wiltshire, England | |
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 Rudloe Manor
Shown within Wiltshire
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| Coordinates | 51°25′14.28″N 2°13′0.70″W / 51.4206333°N 2.2168611°WCoordinates: 51°25′14.28″N 2°13′0.70″W / 51.4206333°N 2.2168611°W |
| Site information | |
| Owner | Private, Military |
| Open to the public |
No |
| Condition | Standing |
| Site history | |
| Built | 1939 |
| In use | 1939–2000 |
| Battles/wars |
Battle of Britain No.10 Group Fighter Command, Europe December 1939 – May 1945 |
RAF Rudloe Manor, formerly RAF Box, was a Royal Air Force station located north-east of Bath, England, between the settlements of Box and Corsham, in Wiltshire. It was one of several military installations situated in the area and covered three dispersed sites.
The station was established on top of quarries from which Bath Stone had been extracted. In the 1930s some of the tunnels had been converted for use as a Central Ammunition Depot. The vast caverns had some 2,250,000 square feet (209,000 m2) of space, divided into many smaller chambers.
During the Second World War, the Operations Centre of No. 10 Group RAF was housed there in three buildings (Operations Room, Filter Room and Communications Centre), which were partially buried for protection, in a similar way to buildings for No. 9 Group at RAF Barton Hall, No. 11 Group RAF at RAF Uxbridge, No. 12 Group RAF at RAF Watnall, No. 13 Group RAF at RAF Newcastle and No. 14 Group RAF at Raigmore House in Inverness.
The operations room, responsible for directing RAF aircraft in the No. 10 Group area, was initially established in a block adjacent to the old manor in June 1940. The area covered by No. 10 Group encompassed South West England and South Wales. Later in the year the operations room was relocated into the north end of an underground bunker in Browns Quarry. The operations room became disused in May 1945 when No. 10 Group was disbanded.
The Filter Room, responsible for filtering large quantities of intelligence on enemy activity before it was passed to the operations room, was located in the south end of the underground bunker in Browns Quarry and became operational in 1940. The filter room became disused in May 1945 when No. 10 Group was disbanded.Eileen Younghusband, who served in various filter rooms, recounted her experiences at Rudloe Manor in her 2011 memoir, "One Woman's War".
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