Looking after our local heritage

continue to grow. Graham Evans joined Tony and Albert and offered to start negotiations with the National Trust who owned Croome, to find a space for the materials that had been collected for a museum.

Tim Hickson

As we all know, Worcestershire is rich in history but often the evidence can be lost unless someone looks after it. Is the World War 2 pillbox alongside Eckington Bridge still there? Why was it built and why there? At the time that was constructed so were the structures by Pershore’s two bridges. Where exactly are they and what were they for? Around the middle of the 17th Century, during the English Civil War, Pershore’s older bridge was knocked down. Who did that - and why?

These are part of one type of history, that of warfare. Whatever we might think of that, if we were alive at the time, like it or not, our lives would have been affected those conflicts. They are part of the history of all of us. When, in 1940, Defford Common, with its grazing rights was taken and two farms removed to construct an aerodrome, RAF Defford, that too, of course, would have affected people’s lives. What happened there was vitally important in ensuring we did not lose that war but, once the RAF had to leave in 1957, significant parts of that airfield began to disappear. Local farmers regained some of the land they had lost and others found new uses for the runways and surrounding land. For example, an important radio telescope with two dish aerials was constructed using the old runways. However, there were still around, men and women who had worked there during the War. Led by Andy Walls, who had arrived at RAF Defford in 1943 as an Aircraft Fitter, a veteran’s group, the RAF Defford Reunion Association, was formed which also worked to ensure that what happened there was not forgotten. Andy and another WW2 RAF Defford Aircraft Fitter, Albert Shorrock, started a newsletter, Contact!, which helped to keep the group together and which acted as a forum to develop new ideas. One such was to have a Museum in which the story of RAF Defford could be told. The group, called the RAF Defford Reunion Association would meet annually in Defford Village Hall.

All such groups need people who make things happen if they are to

Graham had organised and built, on the small green behind Defford Church, the memorial to those from RAF Defford who died. This was unveiled by Sir Bernard Lovell who had led the wartime team at Malvern that developed the airborne radar known as H2S, and after the War had moved back to Manchester University and had built the huge radio telescope at Jodrell Bank. In 2010, the RAF Defford Reunion Association became the Defford Airfield Heritage Group. The DAHG acquired two more enterprising members, Bob Shaw and Dennis Williams.

Near Croome Church remained a set of buildings that constituted the last remaining, almost complete, wartime RAF Sick Quarters. Negotiations with Michael Smith, the Property Manager for the National Trust at Croome were set in motion to make some of these a museum to RAF Defford. Bob Shaw was a particularly effective fund-raiser and Dennis Williams had the knowledge and expertise to set up and run the RAF Defford Museum that exists today. With Graham Evans, Michael Smith had ensured that the buildings were faithfully restored to their original appearance. The Airmen’s Ward became Croome’s National Trust Canteen, the Officers’ Ward is now the NT Reception. What was unused were the wartime Decontamination buildings as well as the Ambulance Garage and Mortuary. (Because poison gases had been used in WW1, it was assumed in 1939 that they might be used again. So all military establishments had decontamination facilities which, thank goodness, never had to be used.)

Now, when you visit, you will find the Decontamination buildings house the RAF Museum Reception and the displays that deal with RAF Defford. The Ambulance Garage has displays relating to the later use of RAF Pershore as well as the front end of a Canberra bomber that flew from RAF Defford. Outside, the Gloster Meteor night fighter that you can see there, rescued and restored, was the last aircraft to fly out of RAF Defford before the aerodrome ceased to be used by the RAF in 1957.

The Museum is currently closed, of course, but once it is able to be opened again, do go and have a look at what once happened near Pershore.

In the meantime, have a look at the DAHG website and watch the video whose title is Defford AirfieldA Secret History.