RAF Edgehill

In 1940, agricultural land that was to become Shenington Airfield was bought from its farming owners with war bonds.

Runway and building work continued all year until on 21st Oct 1941 RAF Edgehill was completed as a satellite airfield for 21 Operational Training Unit (OTU) at Morton in Marsh under Bomber Command though some Wellington 1c's had been flying out of Edgehill since August.

Airfields are traditionally named after the nearest village, but this airfield was originally named RAF Edgehill rather than RAF Shenington to prevent confusion with another Shenington airfield in Scotland (despite the different spelling).

Edgehill was built with 3 hard runways, one 1600 yd's long, the others 1200 yds long. As a bomber airfield it was unusual because the western end of the ground fell away in a scarp face to the valley, hence the reason for the control tower (which still stands amongst the farm buildings at the north-west end) having an extra floor to aid visibility of the approaching aircraft beyond the ridge

The first 'incident' involving aircraft based at Edgehill happened only three days after its official opening, when a Wellington stalled at 400 feet crashing into Lower Brailes. The aircraft was destroyed by fire and only the rear gunner survived. During its active wartime life, many trainee pilots and crew were killed in training around the area. This is a testament to the difficult weather conditions that can prevail around the airfield especially in winter - the airfield had reputedly the highest weather related accident record for any RAF base in the Britain during WW 2.

The Gloster E28/39 Pioneer W4041 - the Whittle Jet - had first flown at Cranwell in 1941. Edgehill was selected as the base for flight tests due to its proximity to the manufacturer's Glosters and Power Jets. It is interesting to note that the first flight tests of jet engines were conducted by attaching the jet to the rear fuselage of a Wellington bomber - strapped to the tail cone.

A hanger was built to house the jet in secrecy on the aerodrome perimeter between Christmas Corner and Shenington turn (near where the John Deere buildings are now). The jet made its first trial taxi on Feb 4th 1942. Flight-testing began and it flew successfully until March 24th when part of a turbine blade broke away in flight and an emergency landing was made on the airfield.

Flight trails of the Gloster were resumed in June 1942. The jet was test flown throughout the summer, occasionally suffering fuel starvation or flame out difficulties and in September in front of a group of visitors, amongst them Americans, an oil pressure problem caused another forced landing. In November the Gloster was taken to Farnborough for engine development work.

Wellington's and Ansons from Edgehill were also used for active duties at this time; a dozen Wellington 1cs were dispatched for the Cologne raid in May 1942, 11 crews operated in the Essen raid and 10 took part in June 1000 plane attack on Bremen.

Rover built the next jet engine and in Feb 1943 the second Gloster jet aircraft, W4046, was taken to Edgehill. It first flew from the airfield on March 1st 1943, reaching just over 400mph with a ground run of only 330yds. The jet was only allowed to venture 5 miles away from the airfield or fly within a 2-mile wide corridor between Edgehill and Cheltenham.

In the April 12 OTU based at Chipping Warden took over the station together with two flights of Wellington III's from Turweston. Edgehill hosted the 12 OTU's gunnery flight of Martinets and Hurricanes as well as the initial training element of the OTU.

The following month, the second Gloster jet was taken to Farnborough and so that was the end of jet testing at Edgehill.

The last flight was made in June 1945. Lancasters had superseded Wellingtons but Edgehill's runways were not long enough and couldn't be lengthened due to the village, valley and hill.

The airfield was put under Care and Maintenance. It then became a sub storage depot for 25 Maintenance Unit, Hartlebury.

The airfield fell into dereliction in the late 1940's. In 1953 it was reactivated under No.1 Flying Training School, Morton in Marsh, training pilots on single engine Harvards and Percival Prentices. But at the end of the Korean War, Edgehill became surplus to requirement and closed as an RAF station.

This picture shows the original airfield layout. The runways are still in use but some are now grass areas after much of the airfield was returned to being an active farm.