HER 15219 DESCRIPTION:-

An area of land south of Stoke Road is seen on the 1977 1:10000 OS plan with perimeter track and some of the airfield buildings still extant. (1)

Details of airfield to be supplied. (2) See site file only used from 1941-1945

Hangers and factory buildings now (1994) Coal Research EST and Sante Fe site.

Airfield History:

Four Bellman hangars, barrack blocks, the Officer's and Sergeants Messes, WAAF billets (Laing/Seco huts), the workshop, stores, SHQ and the MT section filled the SE corner of this airfield. There was also a 30ft compass swinging platform was also provided.

In September 1941, when the airfield became available, 10 EFTS, Weston-Super-Mare moved to Stoke Orchard. The first Tiger Moths moved on September 23rd 1941 then 38 Course on September 27th. By then 54 Tiger Moths had arrived at the aifield which was also being used by the Gloster Aircraft factory as a dispersal factory site.

On June 19th 1942 10 EFTS was informed that it would be closed on July 21st 1942 upon the formation of No.3 Glider Training School (GTS) (which would absorb some personnel). The decision was made because glider training would interfere with conventional flying. The first Hotspur IIs arrived in the days following the 21st and, for towing, the unit equipped Master GIIIs. Airfield surface conditions and intense flying caused detachments of the GTS to operate from Northleach, Aldermaston and Wanborough. Training continued to take place from Stoke Orchard using some Hotspurs modified into MkIII trainers until mid-January 1945 when 3 GTS towed itself to Exeter leaving Stoke Orchard to be held on Care and Maintenance until closure in late 1945. (Sourcework 806)

2015 - Severn Vale NMP Project.

Historic England UI - 1430206 - SO 92 NW 29 - Stoke Orchard Airfield, Gloucestershire, SO 925 275. A former World War Two military airfield, opened in 1941 and closed in 1945. The airfield featured accommodation and communal facilities situated in the south-east corner. This was in the form of Laing or Seco prefabricated huts. According to source 1, the airfield was equipped with Blister aircraft hangars. The main unit using the airfield was 10 Elementary Flying Training School and then 2 Glider Training School. Stoke Orchard Airfield, Gloucestershire, SO 928 275. The wartime airfield comprised grass landing areas 1200 yards by 1100 yards across. Source two mentions only variants of Bellman aircraft hangars at the airfield. Four aircraft Bellman aicraft hangars at around SO 928 276 were extant in 1988, as was parts of the perimeter track and a strip used for crop spraying

The site of a former Second World War airfield, RAF Stoke Orchard, which operated between September 1941 and January 1945. In that time it was the location for 10 Elementary Flying Training School (EFTS) from 1941 to 1942 and No 3 Glider Training School (GTS) from July 1942 onwards. The Gloster Aircraft Company (GAC) continued to use the airfield after the war, ferrying aircraft out from the wartime shadow factory on the airfield’s northern edge to the company’s main site in Brockworth. The airfield was furnished with 4 Belman hangars, 1 triple E.O. (Extra Over) blister (centred at SO 93312 27475), 7 double E.O. (Extra Over) blister hangars, 5 double standard blister hangars and 1 standard blister hangar (centred at SO 92265 28094). Around the perimeter track were sited flight offices and privyhouses near the various dispersed blister hangars along with air raid shelters and picket posts, an explosives store and fuel tanks. In the centre of the grass airfield (centred at SO 92809 27700) was located a large white cross about 25 metres in diameter oriented east-west and north-south. The technical site consisted of the four large Belman hangars, a watch office and fire tender garage, adjacent to which was the Signals Square and the airfield’s Aircraft Code Letters (the Pundit Code), used for airfield recognition on clear days. Nearby at SO 93055 27246 is the compass ring (30 foot diameter). This was used to measure the accuracy of an aircraft’s compass. There were also numerous separate barracks and ablution blocks for airmen and WAAFs, a mess hall, sergeants’ barracks and sergeants’ mess, officers’ quarters and officers’ mess, commanding officer’s quarters, stores, armoury, machine gun range, compressor rooms, maintenance workshops, station headquarters, guardroom and picket posts, barber and grocery shop, medical centre and ambulance garage, gas chamber and decontamination building, air raid shelters, a sports ground, motortransport section, numerous cycle sheds and other ancillary buildings, water tanks, an explosives store a sewage works,Nissen ‘defence huts’, 2 possible slit trenches and four seagull trenches. The field immediately south-east of the airfield’s Technical Site was used for dropping glider tow ropes (centred on SO 92402 26405). Part of the barrack accommodation was taken over by squatting families immediately after the RAF camp was closed down. Apparently this was not uncommon in the post-war period before sufficient public housing became available. Self-governing, the living accomodation was divided up into family units and was known as The Park, a name which continues on modern mapping. The blister hangars disappeared quite quickly after the airfield was abandoned by the RAF and aerial photgraphs dated May 1947 show the numerous blister hangars apparently being dismantled or in a significant state of neglect at that time. The four Belman hangars and part of the perimeter track along the eastern edge of the airfield (bounded by the the railway line) survive to the present for access to the industrial/commercial units at The Aerodrome and The Civic Amenity Site. {Source Works 4249, 7823, 10250 13085 & 13133.}

Historic England UI - 1580925 - SO 92 NW 40 - The site of a Second World War shadow factory, known as Unit 40, located in Stoke Orchard village is visible on historic aerial photographs and was mapped as part of the Severn Vale NMP project. Unit 40 was part of the Gloster Aircraft Company (GAC) based at Brockworth, Gloucester and was the flight testing shed for Hawker Hurricanes and then Hawker Typhoons from 1943 onwards, which were assembled at another nearby GAC shadow factory known as Unit 39. The aircraft were then test flown from adjacent RAF Stoke Orchard airfield. The factory site (centred on SO 92514 28263) was accessed by an entrance on Stoke Road and consisted of one large rectangularbuilding and four much smaller buildings. The main building was about 92 metres long and 36 metres wide and its roofwas painted in a camouflage scheme during wartime. This building is still upstanding on aerial photographs dated 2007 and is now known as The Distribution Centre (a number of warehousing, distribution and industrial units). {Source Works 4249, 7270 & 10250.}

Historic England UI - 1422394 - SO 92 NW 31 - A Second World War airfield defence seagull trench is visible as an extant building on historic aerial photographs and was mapped as part of the Severn Vale NMP project. Centred at SO 93265 27964, it is located between the airfield’s north-eastern boundary adjacent to Stoke Road and the former airfield perimeter track, only a small part of which now survives as an access road to The Aerodrome, The Park and the Civic Amenity Site. The brick-built structure has a reinforced concrete roof and formed part of the defences of the former Second World War airfield, RAF Stoke Orchard, which operated between September 1941 and January 1945. Oriented NW-SE, with its apex and firing embrasures facing SW towards the grass runway, the defensive emplacement is constructed as a shallow V shape, the appearance of which in plan view as a crudely drawn seagull in flight gives rise to its name. Each of the two ‘wings’ is about 6.5 metres long and 2 metres wide. The seagull trench was still visible on aerial photographs taken in 2010. {Source Works 4249, 6880 & 10250.}

"Location: Stoke Orchard Condition: Extant but condition unknown Description: Seagull trench. EDoB Update: Visible in Google Earth. Location adjusted." {Source Work 13514.}