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The camp (locally referred to as Long Road Camp) where the personnel working at the Chain Home radar station at RAF Stoke Holy Cross were accommodated during WW2 was located in Forty Acre Plantation, a wood adjacent to Long Lane in Poringland. Besides the accommodation huts there was also a hospital building.

A bath hut for all locally based military personnel was situated beside the White City council houses at Hillside > Link a short distance south of the Fiveways roundabout > Link. This building was demolished many years ago.

"Chain Home" was the codename for a ring of coastal radar stations built before and during WWII. The system is otherwise known as AMES Type 1. It was devised by Sir Robert Watson-Watt's Air Ministry research station near Bawdsey, Suffolk, and consists of radar fixed on top of a radio tower mast called a 'station' to provide long-range detection of aircraft. The Chain Home stations were arranged around the British coast, initially in the South and East but later the entire coastline, including the Shetland Islands. The system was dismantled after the war.

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Many of the plantation's trees were retained for camouflage purposes. The camp had two entrances, one in and one out. A guardhouse stood to the left of the main (in) entrance, with the motor transport building and the billets extending in the opposite direction (eastwards). The men's quarters were spread out along Long Road, away from the WAAF (Women's Auxiliary Air Force) quarters, which adjoined in the east (near Spur Lane). Old pictures show primarily wooden huts with weatherboarding. Poringland resident Christopher Alston recalls that the camp was built from scratch with wooden huts on stilts. Another resident, Tony Goodyear, remembers that when the camp was closed the huts were sold off by auction. All the huts were locked and no one was allowed to go inside and people bid for them as they stood, on the understanding that they would dismantle them if bought. According to Barrie Doddington, who was stationed at the camp from June 1953 until December 1955, there were a considerable number of airmen on the camp still doing their national service when he left. The camp appears to have been closed in 1956/57, and most of the buildings demolished in 1957.

Forty Acre Plantation was left devastated after the hurricane in 1987 when most of the trees in the area were uprooted. The camp's buildings are long since gone (only one brick-built structure has survived, albeit much vandalised - this used to be the decontamination block) but the concreted road leading into and around the site is still in place. Two air raid shelters (both are flooded and inaccessible) built end to end with a dividing wall, are nearby, and the camp's static water tank has also survived.

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In February 2014, planning permission was sought for the construction of seven new dwellings on the site and for any existing former RAF buildings and structures to be demolished or removed.

Update: The remaining building and the adjacent air raid shelter as well as any remaining hardstandings were demolished in late October 2015.

Created: Fri, 15 May 2015, Updated: Sun, 30 Oct 2016