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Scampton is a village and civil parish in the West Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England. The population of the civil parish including Brampton and Broadholme at the 2011 census was 1,358. It is situated north of Lincoln, south-east of Gainsborough, and immediately west of the A15. In the civil parish, between the village and the A15, is RAF Scampton, to which the parish lends its name. The airfield first opened in 1916 as Home Defence Flight Station Brattleby, becoming Scampton the following year, and then closing in 1919; it re-opened in 1936 as RAF Scampton.


Attractions

Scampton church dedicated to St John the Baptist is mainly from the 18th century, with parts from the 17th century. Many war dead are buried in its churchyard, including 64 British Commonwealth personnel, eight German Luftwaffe airmen, and a further 43 personnel who died on active service. Commonwealth airmen include those who flew from RAF Scampton with the Royal Air Force, Royal Canadian Air Force,
Royal Australian Air Force "Through Adversity to the Stars" , colours = , colours_label = , march = , mascot = , anniversaries = RAAF Anniversary Commemoration ...
, and
Royal New Zealand Air Force The Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) ( mi, Te Tauaarangi o Aotearoa, "The Warriors of the Sky of New Zealand"; previously ', "War Party of the Blue") is the aerial service branch of the New Zealand Defence Force. It was formed from New Zeala ...
. In the early months of the war, a plot of land lying to the right of the church entrance was set aside for the burial of servicemen, but by 1941, it became necessary to reserve further ground in an extension of the churchyard north of the church. This is why the war graves are in two sections, linked by a footpath. Every year, Scampton Church receives hundreds of visitors. The eight German graves are from two Junkers Ju 88 crews that crashed in Scampton. The first group was Junkers Ju 88 No. 5168 Bomber Training Wing 4 from Greifswald, Germany, loaded with 50 kg of bombs, 23 kg of which was found in the wreckage. This plane was on a mission to bomb RAF Hemswell, about directly north of Scampton, but was picked up on radar, tracked, and shot down by RAF Scampton ground defences at 1:35 am on 12 May 1941. The tail was seen to break off as the plane burst into flames and dived into the ground. The wreckage hit the land belonging to a farmer, Mr Miller. He and his wife were quick to arrive at the site when they heard the explosion, with the pilot Lieutenant Kurt Hanning dying in the arms of Mrs Miller, after all three others of the four-man crew had been killed in the crash. However, the discovery of a fifth body five days later by Mr Miller spawned several local conspiracy theories, including that of a top secret spy mission, and that the pilot had given his girlfriend a joy ride over England. In reality, it was discovered that a ground crewman, E H Reidel, took an illegal joy ride when he was reported AWOL from his base the next day. This is the reason for two of the German names sharing a gravestone. The second Ju 88 of '' Nachtjagdgeschwader 5'' met its end on 4 March 1945, known as the 'night of the intruders'. As part of Operation Gisela, a force of 200 Ju 88s of the Luftwaffe Night Fighter Destroyer Group flew at wave top height, making landfall at around midnight between the Thames estuary and North Yorkshire, undetected by radar. They targetted the 450 heavy bombers of
RAF Bomber Command RAF Bomber Command controlled the Royal Air Force's bomber forces from 1936 to 1968. Along with the United States Army Air Forces, it played the central role in the strategic bombing of Germany in World War II. From 1942 onward, the British bo ...
returning from a raid on the
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plants at Kamen, in the
Ruhr The Ruhr ( ; german: Ruhrgebiet , also ''Ruhrpott'' ), also referred to as the Ruhr area, sometimes Ruhr district, Ruhr region, or Ruhr valley, is a polycentric urban area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a population density of 2,800/km ...
, and the Dortmund-Ems Canal. This Ju 88, piloted by 25-year-old Sgt Heinrich Conze, started the night well by intercepting a Lancaster over Langworth and shooting it down. He then proceeded to look for other targets, getting away from Langworth, knowing RAF Mosquito night fighters could now be on their way. Over Hackthorn Road in nearby Welton, he spotted a car's headlights, even though they were hooded, and dived to strafe it. Not realising that there were telegraph poles and wires at the side of the road, the plane hit them and then collided with the car, throwing it two fields over. The car driver and the crew of the plane were killed instantly at around 1:45 am on 4 March. They joined at least 24 bombers that had been shot down, and a further 20 damaged, within just two hours of the raid's beginning. The car driver, Observer Jack P Kelway, was on duty when he was killed, making him the only member of the Royal Observer Corps to be killed on active service, later buried at Newport Cemetery in Lincoln. In town, the Dambusters Inn on High Street contains RAF and Second World War memorabilia. The village school is the modest Scampton Church of England Primary School which was opened in 1876 by the Church of England to serve the children of the local area whatever their background and needs. Nowadays, most of the 62 current four-to-eleven-year-old pupils do not live in the town. The school also runs a blog on their website, and their motto is "The Best for Every Child". The most recent
Ofsted The Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted) is a Non-ministerial government department, non-ministerial department of Government of the United Kingdom, His Majesty's government, reporting to Parliament of the U ...
inspection on 16 July 2021 affirmed that it continued to be a good school.


Climate

As with the rest of the British Isles, Scampton has a temperate
oceanic climate An oceanic climate, also known as a marine climate, is the humid temperate climate sub-type in Köppen classification ''Cfb'', typical of west coasts in higher middle latitudes of continents, generally featuring cool summers and mild winters ( ...
( Köppen: Cfb) with cool summers and mild winters. The nearest official
Met Office The Meteorological Office, abbreviated as the Met Office, is the United Kingdom's national weather service. It is an executive agency and trading fund of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and is led by CEO Penelope E ...
weather station for which online records are available is at RAF Scampton, less than to the south of the town centre. In a typical year, the warmest day should reach a high temperature of at least , whereas the coldest day should always reach a low temperature of . The record high at RAF Scampton peaked at in the afternoon of 19 July 2022 during the
2022 United Kingdom heat wave The 2022 United Kingdom heatwaves were part of several heatwaves across Europe and North Africa. The United Kingdom experienced three heatwaves; the first was for three days in June, the second for three days in July, and the third for six days ...
, beating not only the previous local record of from a three-day heatwave on 26 July 2019, but also the former national record of also from July 2019. The absolute minimum temperature of was recorded on 7 December 2010 at RAF Scampton, during the record-breaking
winter of 2010–11 in Great Britain and Ireland The winter of 2010–11 was a weather event that brought heavy snowfalls, record low temperatures, travel chaos and school disruption to the islands of Great Britain and Ireland. It included the United Kingdom's coldest December since Met Office ...
. A former nearby weather station holds the record for the lowest daytime maximum temperature recorded in England in the month of December at on 17 December 1981. In a year, 48.98 nights should register an air frost. The length of the day varies extremely over the course of the year in Scampton. The shortest day may have 7 hours and 30 minutes of daylight, and the longest as much as 10 hours more, with 17 hours of daylight. The earliest sunrise is at around 4:30 am in June, and the latest sunrise is 4 hours later at 8:30 am in December. The earliest sunset is at 3:30 pm in December, and the latest is 6 hours later at 9:30 pm in June. Daylight saving time (DST) is observed in Scampton, starting in the spring, lasting about 7 months, and ending in the autumn. Winters are generally cool with little temperature variation. Heavy snow is rare, but snow usually falls at least once each winter. Spring and autumn can be pleasant.


References


External links

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Scampton Church of England Primary School website
{{authority control Villages in Lincolnshire Civil parishes in Lincolnshire West Lindsey District