High Post, Amesbury, Wiltshire.
Spitfire Production.

High Post, Amesbury, Wiltshire.
Spitfire Production.

Details

High Post is situated halfway between Salisbury and Amesbury on the A345. Coming from Salisbury there is a set of traffic lights at a cross roads on the top of the hill with the High Post Hotel and a petrol station. Turn left and you will see the first of two hangars on your right.

 

High Post, Amesbury, Wiltshire.
Spitfire Production.

Details

High Post, Amesbury, Wiltshire.
Spitfire Production.

Details

Plan as of 1945.

GB 10 194 Lfl. Kdo.3 September 1940.

High post, Amesbury, Wiltshire.
Spitfire Production.

Details

Today.

High Post, Amesbury, Wiltshire.
Spitfire Production.

Details

The original airfield was between the High Post Hotel & the firework factory.
Flying Officer "Jimmy" Doran-Webb, or simply JD. He had been invalided out of the RAF due to a road accident. He advertised to open an aerodrome in local pubs. Twenty five members subscribed £50 each and a hunt began to find a suitable field.
The grass aerodrome opened in 1930 on 35 acres of grass land behind High Post Hotel. They built a club house, hangar and workshop. The name given to it was "Wiltshire Flying Club". A large white pained landing circle and HIGH POST was spelled out. A large hangar was assembled which started its life at RFC/RAF Stonehenge (night camp). A Jack Cole, a builder from Shrewton and owner of an aircraft there, helped move it. The building is still in use today at Pains Wessex. A piece of land was sub-least to a manufacturer of smoke canisters dropped from aircraft "Salisbury Plain Pyrotechnic (Wessex later)". The club house by 1933 had been increased in size and made to be very comfortable.
In 1936 the High Post Hotel was constructed and with a golf course on the other side of the road, the area started to become a sporting/ enterprise. A petrol filling station built in 1939 by Anna Valley Motors was also added to the mix.

Miss Pauline Gower and Miss Dorothy Spicer 1931. Many women flew from High Post and several went on to become ATA pilots (Air Transport Auxiliary), to fly aircraft from factories to service units throughout the country.

ATA.

Maureen Dunlop1921-2012

ATA mess room at White Waltham.

High Post, Amesbury, Wiltshire.
Spitfire Production.

Details

High Post in the olden days.
Built into the roof line of the Hotel was a very nice air traffic control tower. The feature was actually not part of the flying club and was never used as such, but made a very interesting viewing platform. A green light was installed on the roof and HP was transmitted through Morse code and was visible for miles around.
A feature of the late 1930's was the run up to the war, a government scheme to train pilots and it was called the "Civil Air Guard". Wiltshire Flying Club embraced the scheme and 150 pilots were trained.

Private pilot

Civil Air Guard

High Post, Amesbury, Wiltshire.
Spitfire Production.

Details

The original flying club, control room and hangar.
1934/35 the Royal Artillery Flying Club were formed at High Post. There club secretary was a Captain Bazeley. He realised that the Army's co-operation aircraft (Lysanders) were too large for the job and conducted trials with a G.A. Cygnet and other light aircraft and soon found their favourite light aircraft, a Taylorcraft (Auster), was the best for the job of Air Observation Post. High Post was the base for the trials and they also used Larkhill for the practical side.
Becoming, Major Charles Bazeley of the Royal Artillery. Working as D Flight of an RAF unit and equipped with Auster fixed-wing aircraft, it deployed to France in February 1940 to develop their role on the French artillery ranges.
At the outbreak of war all private flying was closed and most able bodied joined the forces. The aerodrome was immediately taken over by the Military without compensation and all planes and stores were also requisitioned as well.
The first unit to arrive was a Canadians with Lysanders.

Henrye Charles Bazeley 1907 - 1955.
2nd Lt. 29.01.1927 [37039].
Hon. Lt. Col. 23.07.1948.
DSO, MID & DSC (US).
15.09.1935 - 04.06.1941 specially employed with the RAF for artillery observation (Army Co-operation Pilot, then Officer Commanding D Flight RAF, then Commanding Officer, 651 Squadron RAF)

Lt-Col Charles Bazeley DSO.

Air Observation Post 1942.

High Post, Amesbury, Wiltshire.
Spitfire Production.

Details

Three Westland Lysanders in echelon.
The Canadian unit with Lysanders was, 112 (AC) Squadron RCAF. Arriving at RAF Old Sarum, they moved up to High Post to inspect their new home and how disappointed they were. The Hotel was taken over as the Officers Mess and the men slept in tents, in winter. Gradually aircraft arrived in dribs and drabs.
AC - Army Co-operation.

Lysander France 1940.

Plan.

RCAF hat badge.

High Post, Amesbury, Wiltshire.
Spitfire Production.

Details

Type 22 pillbox.
The pillbox defence was in an ark to the north of the airfield.
Once the Canadians had arrived a defence plan was drawn up and pill boxes, trenches and mortar pits erected. The local Home guard helped the Canadians with its defence.

Pillbox defence the yellow dot a pillbox that was removed in the 70's, the two reds are still there and the red one arrowed is this one.

Type 22 plan.

High Post, Amesbury, Wiltshire.
Spitfire Production.

Details

A type 22 pillbox without am anti-ricochet wall in the middle. Note the inserts to attach to a wooden shelf as a rifle rest. The embrasures here are very small and only for rifles.

Type 22 plan.

 

 

High Post, Amesbury, Wiltshire.
Spitfire Production.

Details

Type 22 pillbox with two pistol ports each side of the door.
On the 4th July 200 rifles arrived.

A trench leading to a pillbox.

High Post, Amesbury, Wiltshire.
Spitfire Production.

Details

This hangar was built by Vickers to assemble Spitfires.
Due to the September 24th & 26th of September 1940 attacks on the Woolston Spitfire works, Vickers decided to disperse production. Salisbury, Reading and Trowbridge were areas that could be used. In Salisbury, many garages, workshops started to manufacture Spitfire parts. The fuselage and wings were then towed up from Salisbury to High post and assembled, to be test flown by Vickers test pilots and then flown out to front line squadrons by ATA pilots. The Hotel was taken over as accommodation and canteen and the flying club hangars used for final assembly.

Spitfire production inside the hangar.

 

Plan.

High Post, Amesbury, Wiltshire.
Spitfire Production.

Details

This hangar was built for Vickers to assemble Spitfires.
Production was scattered around the town and Castle Road the man area. Wings were built at in the Wilts and Dorset Bus Garage. Fuselages, leading edges and tail units in Wessex Motor Garage , New Street. Anna Valley Motors built sub-assemblies, wings and tail planes. No.1 factory on the Sheep Fair installed engines and complete fuselages assembled. This area I believe today is the car park for the Rugby club and Berlen Fuel Systems. The component parts were transported to High Post (a story I have heard, was that a local who drove a tractor. Not on a farm, but in town and towed the components behind the tractor daily up the hill to be assembled in the new hangar above.
They were then moved to the Flying Club hangar for testing.

Plan.

Building Spitfires.

High Post, Amesbury, Wiltshire.
Spitfire Production.

Details

This hangar was built for Vickers to assemble Spitfires.
At the end of the war this hangar became a cigarette factory. Typing this makes me smile, as I still remember it as the cigarette factory and my imagination as a youngster passing buy it. I imagined thousands of white cigarettes moving along conveyor belts as seen in film documentaries of the time.
H. Stevens & Co. (Tobaccos) were the manufacturers.

ATA girls arriving to collect Spitfires.

High Post, Amesbury, Wiltshire.
Spitfire Production.

Details

A double length Robins type hangar. Ministry of Ag. & Fish controlled the farms at the end of the war and in 1950 they built this Robins Type B hangar as a grain storage unit. It had nothing to do with the airfield. The 5 bay building was extended by two bays by the new owner, Leslie Edwards in later 1950's.

Robins hangar.

High Post, Amesbury, Wiltshire.
Spitfire Production.

Details

A double length Robins type hangar.
Steel frame and cement asbestos panels.

High Post, Amesbury, Wiltshire.
Spitfire Production.

Details

A double length Robins type hangar looking through the door.

Yellow - High Post Hotel.
Red - brick hangar.
Green - Robins.

RAF Kemble Robins hangar inside.