Whitfield (Tilstock) Airfield is an airfield located in

Shropshire Shropshire (; alternatively Salop; abbreviated in print only as Shrops; demonym Salopian ) is a landlocked historic county in the West Midlands region of England. It is bordered by Wales to the west and the English counties of Cheshire to th ...

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, close to the village of Prees and east of the village of Tilstock and south of Whitchurch, near the junction of the A41 and A49.

Prees Heath Army Camp

Opened in 1915 as a training base for the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

, it had a capacity for 30,000 men for training in

trench warfare Trench warfare is a type of land warfare using occupied lines largely comprising military trenches, in which troops are well-protected from the enemy's small arms fire and are substantially sheltered from artillery. Trench warfare became a ...

. It additionally acted later as a store for supplies, with its own railway depot fed by a branch line from the

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Crewe and Shrewsbury Railway The Crewe and Shrewsbury Railway was a railway company which was previously owned by the London and North Western Railway (LNWR), built to connect Crewe with the Shrewsbury and Hereford Railway which was jointly owned with GWR. Authorised in 1 ...

. As casualties mounted, it became a

hospital A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment with specialized health science and auxiliary healthcare staff and medical equipment. The best-known type of hospital is the general hospital, which typically has an emerge ...

with a fully fledged

barracks Barracks are usually a group of long buildings built to house military personnel or laborers. The English word originates from the 17th century via French and Italian from an old Spanish word "barraca" ("soldier's tent"), but today barracks are u ...

. The scale and size of the camp brought about the appointment of the first female

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s in the

Shropshire Constabulary Shropshire Constabulary was the territorial police force responsible for policing rural Shropshire in central England from 1840 until 1967, when it became part of West Mercia Constabulary. History The Shropshre Constabulary was formed along with bo ...

, to manage and restrain local women from heading to the camp. After the war ended, the facilities were downgraded, with the British Government keeping ownership of the site for Army training purposes.

Prees Heath internment camp

At the outbreak of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

in 1939, the site became an

internment Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simpl ...

camp for screening

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n and

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refugees, with capacity added for holding 2,000 men by the erection of a large

tent A tent () is a shelter consisting of sheets of fabric or other material draped over, attached to a frame of poles or a supporting rope. While smaller tents may be free-standing or attached to the ground, large tents are usually anchored using gu ...

ed village. Later converted to a prisoner of war camp, it closed on 4 October 1941.

RAF Tilstock

Construction of an

airfield An aerodrome (Commonwealth English) or airdrome (American English) is a location from which aircraft flight operations take place, regardless of whether they involve air cargo, passengers, or neither, and regardless of whether it is for publ ...

was completed by mid-1942, the airfield opening on 1 August that year,Smith 1981, p. 193. with a classic three concrete runway RAF "star" arrangement. The name "Whitchurch Heath" was used until 1 June 1943, when RAF Tilstock was adopted. Between 1 September 1942 and 21 January 1946, the airfield was used by No. 81 Operational Training Unit and No. 1665 Heavy Conversion Unit Royal Air Force for the training of pilots and crews in the operation of Whitley, Stirling and Halifax heavy bombers. During the 1950s, Auster AOP.6 and Auster T.7 'spotter' aircraft of No. 663 (AOP) Squadron RAF used the facilities of the otherwise non-operational airfield during weekends for liaison flights with

Royal Artillery The Royal Regiment of Artillery, commonly referred to as the Royal Artillery (RA) and colloquially known as "The Gunners", is one of two regiments that make up the artillery arm of the British Army. The Royal Regiment of Artillery comprises t ...

units on training exercises.

Sport parachuting

In 1964, it was home to the Manchester Skydivers. In 1967, it became Manchester Free Fall Club (MFFC), run by the ex-paratroopers. Over the next three decades the club was run as a local members' club at weekends with a mixture of regular club jumpers and first time jumpers keen to experience sport parachuting and often to raise funds for charity. There were a number of local affiliations with universities and polytechnics. The mainstay aircraft were a number of Cessna 172s and 182s. In the 1990s, the club was taken over and run on a more commercial basis, but due to local disputes over noise and some financial difficulties the regularity of flying days declined. It is now Skydive Tilstock Freefall Club which is a non-profit making sports club and a

company limited by guarantee In British, Australian, Bermudian, Hong Kong and Irish company law (and previously New Zealand), a company limited by guarantee (CLG) is a type of corporation used primarily (but not exclusively) for non-profit organisations that require legal pe ...

. It uses a Gippsland GA8 Airvan with a maximum capacity of ten people including the crew.

Today

The airfield is unlicensed. The remaining runway is designated 14/32. A large part of the site is now occupied by a

solar farm Solar may refer to: Astronomy * Of or relating to the Sun ** Solar telescope, a special purpose telescope used to observe the Sun ** A device that utilizes solar energy (e.g. "solar panels") ** Solar calendar, a calendar whose dates indicate t ...

References

External links

Skydive Tilstock
{{authority control Airports in England Transport in Shropshire Buildings and structures in Shropshire Airports in the West Midlands (region)