2016

TG1608 : ROTOR Radar station guardroom

taken 8 years ago, near to Little Melton, Norfolk, England

ROTOR Radar station guardroom
ROTOR Radar station guardroom
A distinctive feature of the east coast sites was the so-called Bungalow, a guardroom designed to look like an ordinary bungalow so as to disguse its real purpose, and more importantly the fact that it concealed an access corridor leading into a large underground bunker.
RAF Bawburgh RGHQ

ROTOR was an extensive, elaborate and very costly air defence radar system built by the British Government in the early 1950s in an attempt to counter possible nuclear attacks by Soviet bomber aircraft. In April 1956, 39 new stations were handed over to RAF Fighter Command and the existing structure was re-arranged into six Sector Operational Commands (SOC), each with its own command bunker. Only four of these were however used, one of them being an originally three-level ROTOR bunker located near the village of Bawburgh and RAF Bawburgh was designated the SOC for the Eastern Sector (4).

By the 1960s, many of the bunkers which had been constructed only a relatively short while ago had already become redundant, and when the policy of Regional Seats of Government Headquarters was introduced a number of ROTOR sites where utilised. Bawburgh was designated Sector Operations Headquarters 4.1 (SRHQ4.1). One of the SRHQs' principal roles was the strategic control of the remaining civil defence organisation after an attack, with the aim to conserve resources for longer-term survival rather than short-term aid to the hardest hit areas. In 1968, Bawburgh became the regional Seat of Government, officially referred to as RGHQ4 - Regional Government Headquarters of Region 4 (East).

RAF Bawburgh was decommissioned in 1990 and sold off in 1994 and the main site including the now disused bunker has since been privately owned. A few buildings associated with the site have survived in the vicinity.


Creative Commons Licence [Some Rights Reserved]   © Copyright Evelyn Simak and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
Geographical Context: Defence, Military
This photo is linked from: Automatic Clusters: · East Coast Sites was the So-called Bungalow [4] Other Photos: · Telephone extension box on the gatepost ·
1:50,000 Modern Day Landranger(TM) Map © Crown Copyright
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TG1608, 133 images   (more nearby 🔍)
Photographer
Evelyn Simak   (more nearby)
Date Taken
March 2016   (more nearby)
Submitted
Wednesday, 6 April, 2016
Subject Location
OSGB36: geotagged! TG 1657 0804 [10m precision]
WGS84: 52:37.6135N 1:11.9080E
Camera Location
OSGB36: geotagged! TG 1659 0803
View Direction
Northwest (about 315 degrees)
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Image classification(about): Geograph
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