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World War One Audit of Surviving Remains

Date 31 May 2013

Event ID 961132

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type World War One Audit of Surviving Remains

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/961132

Montrose (Broomfield) military aerodrome [AS_L1_30] NO75NW 31 succeeded the first Montrose aerodrome at Upper Dysart, which had been built before the First World War. Construction began in 1913 in an area between the NE edge of the town and the beach. The station saw only limited activity in 1914 and 1915, but developed a greater role in training and aircraft repair in the later years of the war. It was the only Royal Flying Corps station (in contrast to Royal Naval Air Stations) in Scotland at the beginning of 1916.

By 1918 the aerodrome covered an area of 75 hectares, measuring about 915m by 820m, bounded on the west by a railway line. In a survey of RAF aerodromes in August 1918 the aerodrome was known as ‘No. 32 Training Depot Station (NW Area; No. 20 Group, 30th Wing)’, the function of which was ‘A Training Depot Station (Three Unit), Single Seater Fighter’ and ‘(b) HQ of 30th Wing’. The 1918 map of the station shows only a limited number of buildings, arranged differently from the Training Depots constructed from scratch in 1917-18, such as Crail or Leuchars. Six Royal Flying Corps pattern side-opening aeroplane sheds were built in 1913-14 along the SW edge of the aerodrome boundary; only a bare handful of other buildings is mapped, and the 1918 survey identifies these as teaching huts and gunnery and wireless huts, ammunition stores, night stores and the ‘Women’s Rest Hut’. The rest of the station’s technical and accommodation buildings were at Panmure Barracks, in Montrose – further teaching buildings, workshops and accommodation for the officers who commanded the depot, their officer pupils, and the male and female service personnel who worked there. The six hangars were prefabricated in Glasgow and were originally intended for the Upper Dysart site, the decision being made to move the station to Broomfield before delivery.

The 1918 survey delineated a separate area less than 100m to the south of the main station, measuring 135m by 110m. By the time of the 3rd epoch OS 1:2500 map this area was occupied by a complex of buildings, probably adding to or replacing the accommodation at Panmure Barracks. The hangars and other buildings of the station are also marked on this same map.

In 1918 the establishment of the station was 180 officer and Non Commissioned Officer pupils, and 659 base staff, of whom 216 were women; the buildings to increase the station’s strength from two to three squadrons was still under way in the summer of 1918. The base was designed to have 36 Camel and 36 Avro aeroplanes.

The station was noted in 1918 as being on the list of ‘permanent stations’, rather than a temporary, wartime only, base. This did not, however, prevent the Training Depot being disbanded in May 1919 and the aerodrome closed and passed back to the army in 1920; the hangars were used to store tanks and artillery pieces, and the accommodation area to the south was sold. The aerodrome was re-opened as an operational RAF station in 1936. The RAF left in 1950.

Three of the First World War hangars survive, although now covered in modern steel cladding. What is supposed to be the wooden First World War station HQ building is now the aerodrome museum. A timber building identified as a guard room also survives.

Information from HS/RCAHMS World War One Audit Project 31 May 2013

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