Archaeology Notes

Event ID 751073

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/751073

NO00SE 26.00 centred 0950 0345

For RAF Balado Bridge Radio Station see NO00SE 38 and the WW II accommodation camp see NO10SW 137

NO00SE 26.01 NO 09709 03608 Control Tower

NO00SE 26.02 NO 09013 03646 Aircraft Hangars

NO00SE 26.03 centred NO 0823 0362 Military Camp

RAF Balado Bridge [NAT]

OS 1:10,000 map, 1985.

Opened during 1942 as a satellite to Grangemouth (NS98SW 23), and closed for flying in 1957 and all operations were transferred to a new site. Now used as a radio station with aerials inside 'golf-ball' housings (see NO00SE 38). The control tower is still standing on private land.

D J Smith 1983; B Quarrie 1987

This airfield is situated to the W of Kinross and N of the A977 public road. Some airfield buildings are still extant and the runways now have sheds for battery chickens built on them. A modern radar station (RAF Balado Bridge) consisting of a 'golf-ball' housed aerial has also been constructed immediately to the S of the E-W runway (NN00SE 38).

J Guy 2000; NMRS MS 810/9, 12

Balado Bridge Airfield is visible on RAF WW II vertical air photographs (NLA 71, 3049-3053, 4051-4054, flown 9 September 1943), and 1947 postwar vertical air photographs(CPE/Scot/UK/290, Pt.III, 5198-5204, flown 2 September 1947). The air photographs show that the airfield only had two runways, not the normal three, though the stub of the third mentioned by Smith can also be seen at the SE corner (Smith 1983). The main aircraft hangar (NO00SE 26.02), and the blister hangars on the perimeter, control tower (NO00SE 26.01) and other ancilliary buildings are all visible, though differences in what appears on the 1943 and 1947 photographs are apparent. A further series of poor quality air photographs taken in 1946 (CPE/Scot/Scot/194, 1249-1252, flown 11 October 1946), show the area in use as a scrapyard, with over 200 aircraft of in varying stages of dismantling dispersed over the the NW part of the airfield.

Accommodation and technical supprt was provided by several dispersed camps, notably the very large area occupied at Turfhills (NO10SW 137) and the smaller Braidmyre Wood camp (NO00SE 26.03).

Part of the airfield continues in military use by the RAF as a 'listening station' (NO00SE 38) and at present, part of the rest for annual pop festivals. Most of the main E-W and part of the NE-SW runway are now either partly or wholly occupied by large sheds housing battery chickens and many of the perimeter taxiways can still be seen as can some of the dispersal bays and bases for the blister type hangars.

Information from RCAHMS (DE), September 2005 (visited July 2004)