Be your own Biggles. RAF Neatishead site for sale.
Discussion
Ginge R said:
Before the Ground Launched Cruise Missile Alert and Maintenance Area at Greenham Common was pinged for inclusion within various Treaty clauses and earmarked as a site for heritage, it was looked at with a view to store cars, artwork etc.
It is now a secure data centre & a paper archive amongst other things.
Interesting.. but I thought the site was an ancient monument and open to inspection still?
http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/forums/military-sites...
http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/forums/military-sites...
tr7v8 said:
It is now a secure data centre & a paper archive amongst other things.
Ginge R said:
Interesting.. but I thought the site was an ancient monument and open to inspection still?
http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/forums/military-sites...
Bits of it are, but the ammo dump is now the archival store & what was the ops room is a data centre. I know we reviewed it for a customer a while ago. It was just as they left it! Literally boards on the wall showing DEFCON status etc. http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/forums/military-sites...
tr7v8 said:
It is now a secure data centre & a paper archive amongst other things.
Yes, I think the GAMA at Greenham has been left as-is for arms-treaty verification purposes. Interesting place, Greenham Common. I played paintball there just after the USAF left, running round the camp. The runway 'imprint' still looks enormous from the air, although the hard airfield bits were dug up and ended-up under the Newbury bypass. There's a public park just on the outskirts of the town that still has an old baseball scoreboard! I lived just a mile from the place until recently; I used to walk on the common and wonder what it was like back in the days of B47s, visiting '52s and B58 Hustlers, KC135s and communist 'peace' lezzers. Would've been handy for RIAT visits back when it was held there.
The fulltime peace women were ok, mainly. The wretched ones were the weekenders; the bored professionals, the listless and the media w
es.
Greenham Common was also used as a refugee handling centre when Idi Amin kicked every man and his dog out of Uganda.
RIATs were fabulous. The Douglas Bader missing man formation, well.. 200,000 people or so falling silent. Amazing, spine tingling.
es. Greenham Common was also used as a refugee handling centre when Idi Amin kicked every man and his dog out of Uganda.
RIATs were fabulous. The Douglas Bader missing man formation, well.. 200,000 people or so falling silent. Amazing, spine tingling.
if i remember correctly, it was the hippies on the main gate, next the main womans peace camp at the east end of airfield, the two ladies living in the old VW camper one of the aux exit and a few more down the far end of the airfield.
Done my stint there in 85, weekend warriors and B.Kents rent a mob were a pain in the......
Done my stint there in 85, weekend warriors and B.Kents rent a mob were a pain in the......
Edited by whiteonyx on Wednesday 6th February 00:33
Ginge R said:
Interesting.. but I thought the site was an ancient monument and open to inspection still?
http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/forums/military-sites...
Yep, a quick Google confirms it's all empty and has been for years and unlikely to change.http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/forums/military-sites...
tr7v8 said:
It is now a secure data centre & a paper archive amongst other things.
It's protected to the same level as places like Stonehenge, in that it significantly represents social and political values of the era. Or something.
Well, it failed to sell.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-21376...
And back on the market apparantly.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-21376...
And back on the market apparantly.
speedtwelve said:
Yes, I think the GAMA at Greenham has been left as-is for arms-treaty verification purposes. Interesting place, Greenham Common. I played paintball there just after the USAF left, running round the camp. The runway 'imprint' still looks enormous from the air, although the hard airfield bits were dug up and ended-up under the Newbury bypass. There's a public park just on the outskirts of the town that still has an old baseball scoreboard! I lived just a mile from the place until recently; I used to walk on the common and wonder what it was like back in the days of B47s, visiting '52s and B58 Hustlers, KC135s and communist 'peace' lezzers. Would've been handy for RIAT visits back when it was held there.
I used to fly model aircraft on the main runway at Greenham whilst it was an active base and I kid you not, on one occasion we were asked to land our aircraft and move to one side for a Galaxy to land 
We continued to fly for some years until the airbase started to be pulled apart
I used to live in Thatcham and spent many happy hours on that windswept piece of concrete
Funnily enough I used to fly from an airfield that was used by R/C model flyers during quiet hours. Occasionally recovered from evening sorties to find model jets in the circuit doing 100kts+. Did low approaches to go-around until they got the hint and landed the models! Some quite impressive kit; proper gas-turbine engines. No wonder they needed a hard runway.
I lived in Thatcham for 7 yrs BTW. Looked OK on initial inspection, turned out to be a chav-infested dump down the Broadway in the evenings unfortunately. Easy access to the countryside, though. Could have been worse; at least it wasn't Reading
.
I lived in Thatcham for 7 yrs BTW. Looked OK on initial inspection, turned out to be a chav-infested dump down the Broadway in the evenings unfortunately. Easy access to the countryside, though. Could have been worse; at least it wasn't Reading
.Edited by speedtwelve on Saturday 16th February 01:37
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