IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Naird Lane, SHIFNAL, TF11 9PJ

Encountered during a mid afternoon, Christmas Eve run - this large puddle filled the road from side to side, and despite my efforts to dig a bit of a drainage channel off to the right verge, it remained stubbornly in place several minutes later. Wet feet were the inevitable result.

A wartime photo. The airman is thought to be Jimmy Tagg, but more importantly the backdrop is probably a crew rest room, complete with coal bunker in the foreground. Reflected in the window on the right is the adjacent building, probably the store. Image

Taken January 1999. The remains of the outbuildings. Located about 120m to the east of the tower. Image

Taken January 1999. The remains of the outbuildings, located about 120m to the east of the tower. Although it's no longer standing, in the distance just visible in the mist to the left of the buildings, one can just make out the former tower's red brick blast wall. START:- Image

It's not connected, and this and its neighbour bear little red notices: Do not climb or attach any BT plant. Pole due for recovery.

This country lane is eroded by heavy vehicles using the depot 200 metres further on.

A wartime photo of the DF tower at sunset, and what may be an aerial silhouetted against the sky as the tower was described as having 'wire aerials going out to the trees'. Despite the station's secrecy (it was very 'hush-hush' at the time), Bess Edwards often visited the tower and was even allowed inside. She gives a fascinating insight into the tower's operation and its construction describing it in her own words as "... an octagonal building made of wood with a brick base and an inner wall, and an outer wall which ran round the outside of it. It was a bit like a windmill, with a ground floor and a ladder which went into the top part of it, where the RAF officers had to sit with all this equipment with which they had to track the planes as they went over. On the bottom floor they had seats and things. It was a rest area. I suppose it was where they could be off duty... Lower down the field were the outbuildings for stores and for an extra billet." Image

Taken January 1999. Showing the remains of the wooden tower dumped unceremoniously into the confined space of the outer octagonal brick blast wall. A firefighter from Tweedale fire station recalls that the tower was vandalised in the 1970s when an attempt was made to burn it down. At that time it still stood at full height, and was, and still is, recorded on OS maps, as are the outbuildings, of which no trace of either remains today. Image

This is the first of a series of photos of an RAF direction finding station taken during the Second World War between 1942 and 1945. Also included are later photos of the remains of the DF tower and ancillary buildings, taken in January 1999. There are many photos on the Geograph website of these structures, none as far as I know show the 30 ft wooden tower within the octagonal blast wall. It is only the latter that normally survives, so these photos are not only rare, but also an important record of a unique wartime structure, particularly as the site no longer exists. All photos reproduced by kind permission of Mrs Bess Edwards (nee Harris), and the Shropshire Star newspaper. The photo is believed to show Don Allmay who was an artist, who painted pictures of Walt Disney characters on the interior walls of the tower. As a young child, Bess Edwards used to take tea in a basket to the airmen on duty in the tower. Airmen based at the fixer station were billeted at nearby Sunnymede Farm (where Bess Edward's parents farmed). Note the wooden props (8 in all) on the sides of the octagonal tower, giving it added stability. It was wooden (to avoid magnetic interference) and double skinned, with the void filled with gravel giving it stability, and also some protection to the occupants against strafing enemy aircraft. Image