Archaeology Notes

Event ID 850628

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/850628

NJ26SW 155 centred 2001 6038

For the N part of this airfield see sheet NJ16SE.

A wartime satellite to Lossiemouth, alternatively named Bogs O' Mayne, has now reverted to farmland. A few buildings survive on the road running down the W side, one of which is the Flight Office, whilst across the road, opposite some new bungalows, is a fine memorial to 20 OTU, incorporating the units' badge.

D J Smith 1983; J Guy 1992; NMRS MS 810/1.

Listed by GRC as site NJ16SE 36 under name Miltonduff Elgin.

NMRS, MS/712/9.

Bogs O'Mayne or Elgin Airfield is situated on level ground about 2.5Km SW of Elgin, immediately E of the River Lossie and W of Miltonduff. The airfield occupied about 180.5 hectares with an additional 6.50 hectares for domestic accommodation between Wester Manbeen Cottages and Miltonduff.

All that survives of the perimeter technical site are three brick and concrete buildings on the E side of the B9010 road at NJ 19537 60380, NJ 19557 60347 and NJ 19537 60330 (all on map sheet NJ16SE). The buildings would appear to have been used for motor transport and engineering repairs, but without an airfield plan, a defintive identification is impossible.

Of the other perimeter buildings nothing remains and most of the hardstandings and grass runways have now been returned to cultivation. Postwar vertical air photographs show that the control tower was at c.NJ 1957 6029 (map sheet NJ16SE); (106G/Scot/UK 169, 3316-3317, flown 26 August 1946). The photographs also show that on the W and N sides of the airfield were a series of twenty concrete hardstandings.

The technical and domestic sites are visible on the a series of vertical air photographs (106G/Scot/UK 169, 3315-3317, 3370-3373 and 5394-5395, flown 26 August 1946), including several area of hutted camps at centred NJ 1900 5951, NJ 1851 5986 and NJ 1858 5932 (map sheet NJ15NE). Some huts would also appear to have survived at NJ 1900 5951.

A memorial has been erected opposite Wester Manbeen Cottages (c.NJ 1951 6030), to the Operational Training Units (OTU) that served at this airfield.

The airfield closed sometime during 1947 after being used for aircraft storage from 1945 onwards.

Visited by RCAHMS (DE), 28 August 2007