Volunteer professional photographer Stefan Lange took this impressive photo reflecting the dismantled Hangar.
construction of our Hangar at that critical time in late 1940. Uniquely located on top of the slightly sloping surface of the existing Race Track, exactly how the Bellman was built sufficiently level to function as a dispersed assembly line for Wellington and Warwick aircraft is only now being discovered and recorded.
Likewise, the extent of any surviving Finishing Straight beneath the Bellman’s thick post-war floor slab is also slowly being revealed as the Hangar comes down. Limited areas of Track uncovered by contractors exposing the steel- work's footings appear to survive in remarkably good condition having been protected from the overlying concrete floor by a layer of brick rubble. This aspect of the project can be seen as a rather unusual archaeological excavation involving several layers of ‘concrete stratigraphy’ as we have yet to discover how far the brick rubble layer extends towards the east side of the building where the surviving Track lies directly below the floor due to the higher level of the Finishing Straight beside the Hill. We also know that the Hangar’s construction required some of the Track to be replaced and modified at both ends of the building, but have yet to find the extent of this.
Regular liaison with the contractors on other
areas of the scheme has seen a layer of weeds and earth carefully removed from the extreme north west corner of the Finishing Straight to reveal how little of the original kerb survives there as well as the condition of the adjacent concrete. A surprising discovery was the existence of a
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mysterious brick-lined chamber (about two metres square and one metre deep) located close to the site of a small Vickers storage building and apparently linked via an underground drain to the site of the other World War Two dispersal hangar on the nearby Banking. Having carefully exca- vated this structure but only finding single entry and exit pipes in opposite sides, four vertical slots in the two other sides and large quantities of shingle mixed with demolition material and rusty metal, our best theory is that this was a special war-time drainage chamber, possibly designed to separate contaminated material from entering the dispersed hangar’s drains. No related records have been found so far but it appears to have been back-filled in the mid-1980s and has now also been recorded for posterity as it will disappear when this part of the Track is restored.
Meanwhile, work has continued towards completing our splendid new Flight Shed. With the Museum having partial possession of the upper floor from 6th September (and filling much of it with exhibits displaced from the Bellman Hangar), the ground floor Workshop, Archive Store, Reading Room, Crew Room and other fa- cilities were inspected by architect Clive England of Thomas Ford & Partners on 19th October and although access is restricted by other building work nearby, these areas are now also ready for use by Museum personnel, but there will be no public access until the whole project is finished next summer.
Julian Temple
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