RAF Stanbridge
Royal Air Force Stanbridge
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| near Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, England | |
 Royal Air Force Stanbridge
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| Coordinates | 51°54′39″N 000°38′20″W / 51.91083°N 0.63889°WCoordinates: 51°54′39″N 000°38′20″W / 51.91083°N 0.63889°W |
| Type | Communications Centre |
| Site information | |
| Owner | Ministry of Defence |
| Controlled by | Royal Air Force |
| Open to the public |
No |
| Site history | |
| Built | 1939 |
| In use | 1939 – 2012 |
RAF Stanbridge (originally RAF Leighton Buzzard) was a non-flying RAF station situated on the outskirts of Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, England and located 1.6 miles (2.6 km) west of the village of Stanbridge, Bedfordshire.
RAF Leighton Buzzard was created to be the main Central Exchange and Wireless Telegraph station for the RAF's telephone and telegraph network, which had been established from 1936. The site was chosen for its good wireless reception, proximity to the existing GPO trunk telephone network, and lack of other apparent military significance. It became operational in May 1939, with a staff of about 600 servicemen and women. During the Second World War it handled "practically the whole of the national landline teleprinter communications and a large part of the private speech telephone system", together with the wireless transmission and reception of all RAF international communications. It has been described as in 1942 "the largest telephone exchange in the world".
Renamed RAF Stanbridge after the war, the station continued to be the hub of the RAF's communication network. In 1959, as the RAF's Central Signals Centre, it was dealing with 10,000 messages a day: 5,500 domestic and 4,500 international. It later became designated the Communications Control Centre (CCC or Commcen Central), at the heart of the Defence Communications Network (DCN), established in 1969.
By the mid 1980s, with its original equipment obsolete, the station was very run down; but in 1987 the station took on a new role, with its main building substantially rebuilt, when the RAF Supply Control Centre (RAFSCC) was relocated from RAF Hendon to RAF Stanbridge, along with the Joint Services Air Trooping Centre (JSATC). In this role it housed the RAF's Supply Central Computer System, responsible for tracking logistics and supplies records for the RAF all across the world. Administratively the station was latterly grouped under RAF Henlow and then under RAF Brampton Wyton Henlow.
The Supply Control Centre work was contracted out in 2011 to Boeing Defence UK at Milton Keynes, other functions having been outsourced in the 1990s. RAF Stanbridge was deemed redundant, and closed the following year. The station's remaining buildings were demolished in 2016.
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