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RAF Fighter Command Group 12 Watnall Bunker (4)

Watnall railway station was a station serving the village of

Watnall Watnall is an area in the Borough of Broxtowe in Nottinghamshire, England. It is part of Greasley civil parish, and is located one mile north of Kimberley. It is in the Nuthall West and Greasley (Watnall) ward of Broxtowe Council. The village ...

Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated Notts.) is a landlocked county in the East Midlands region of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. The trad ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. The station opened in 1882 and closed in 1917. It was sited at the eastern end of the railway cutting used to provide the

Midland Railway The Midland Railway (MR) was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1844. The Midland was one of the largest railway companies in Britain in the early 20th century, and the largest employer in Derby, where it had its headquarters. It ama ...

with a route through to Kimberley. The cutting still exists although it is heavily overgrown. Remnants of the platform can be found beneath the undergrowth, but the buildings are no longer in existence. A bunker was built on this site for

RAF Watnall RAF Watnall was the operational headquarters of No. 12 Group, RAF Fighter Command at Watnall in Nottinghamshire, England. History The station was established during the Second World War in Spring 1940 to act as headquarters for No. 12 Group ...

during 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 opposi ...

and used as an operations centre for

No. 12 Group RAF No. 12 Group of the Royal Air Force was a group, a military formation, that existed over two separate periods, namely the end of the First World War when it had a training function and from just prior to the Second World War until the early 1960s ...

. The headquarters moved to

RAF Newton Royal Air Force station Newton or more simply RAF Newton is a former Royal Air Force station located east of Nottingham, Nottinghamshire and south west of Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire, England. It was used briefly as a bomber base for s ...

in 1946, but the bunker remained in use for the duration of the

ROTOR Rotor may refer to: Science and technology Engineering * Rotor (electric), the non-stationary part of an alternator or electric motor, operating with a stationary element so called the stator *Helicopter rotor, the rotary wing(s) of a rotorcraft ...

program and was mothballed in 1961. The bunker was used as a rifle range by the Awsworth - Kimberley and District Rifle Club. In May 2010, local police discovered a large cannabis factory inside the bunker.

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* {{Closed stations Nottinghamshire Disused railway stations in Nottinghamshire Former Midland Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1882 Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1917

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