IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Leconfield Walk, HORNCHURCH, RM12 6NZ

Towards Hornchurch, Wood Lane joins from the left.

The visitor centre is managed by Essex Wildlife Trust http://www.essexwt.org.uk/reserves/ingrebourne and has been open since October 2015. To continue on an alphabetical tour of Wildlife Trust sites in Essex go to Image

This memorial is in the grounds of a primary school named after the chief designer of the Spitfire, R.J Mitchell. It reads "Site of RAF Hornchurch sector airfield for No 11 Group. To all aircrew & ground personnel who served here 1928-1962". Some of the famous names who served here include Douglas Bader, Bob Stanford Tuck and A.G "Sailor" Malan.

A pub on South End Road serving the residents of the "Airfield Estate". The road to hell was paved with the good intent of Flying Officer Raimund Sanders-Draper an American airman posted to RAF Hornchurch. His exploits were the subject of a Musical Play produced at the Queens Theatre in Hornchurch in 2003. Sanders-Draper was killed in 1943 during a crash landing, he stayed with his stricken aircraft so he could avoid crashing into the local school, he had sufficient height to bail out but chose to save the children. The school in Suttons Lane was renamed Sanders-Draper in his honour.

One of the few parts of the old RAF Hornchurch that have survived. The concrete aircraft dispersal is surrounded with an air raid shelter in the blast protection mound, is now used as a car park for the country park. RAF Hornchurch opened in 1917 as Suttons Farm but closed at the end of WW1. A new station was opened in 1928. Spitfires from Hornchurch took part in the infamous Battle of Barking Creek in late 1939 when two Hurricanes from RAF North Weald were shot down, one of the pilots was killed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Barking_Creek. Hornchurch was a one of the most important of 11 Group's Sector stations during the Battle of Britain. It remained an RAF fighter station until spring of 1945. From 1952-62 it was the Aircrew selection centre it finally closed in 1963. Much of the airfield was built over but there are some relics in the country park. You can see some unusual airfield defences at Image To go to the next field in an alphabetical tour of Essex WW2 airfields click on Image Much information was gleaned from Graham Smith’s book “Essex Airfields In The Second World https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Essex_Airfields_in_the_Second_World_War.html?id=u3atAAAACAAJ&redir_esc=y

Some of Britain's greatest Battle of Britain pilots would once have passed through these doors. It is now a Surgery.