RAF Culmhead on the Blackdown Hills in Somerset. Where once the wings of Polish Hurricanes were bathed in sunshine there are now solar panels.

RAF Culmhead in Somerset is one of three wartime airfields built amongst the Blackdown Hills; the other two, RAF Dunkeswell and RAF Upottery, are in Devonshire.  Culmhead, high on a plateaux 4.5 miles east of the Wellington Monument, opened in August 1941 as a standard three runway fighter airfield for the defence of Bristol and Exeter.

Remains of the control tower at RAF Culmhead.

The first occupants were 316 and 302 Squadrons of No.2 Polish Wing equipped with Hurricanes.  Both squadrons had left by December 1941 by which time another Polish Squadron, 306, moved in flying Spitfires.  The Poles stayed at Culmhead until June 1942 when they were replaced by Czech Squadrons.

Initially known as RAF Churchstanton, the airfield was renamed Culmhead on 22nd December 1943 to avoid confusion with RAF Church Fenton in Yorkshire.  

After the Czechs came further RAF and FAA Fighter Squadrons, among them the 24th Naval Fighter Wing, consisting of 887 and 894 Squadrons with their Seafires.  The naval pilots flew 400 sorties from Culmhead during 3 weeks in April and May of 1944.  Operations over the English Channel and Northern France included escorting convoys, shipping strikes and fighter sweeps. The Wing eventually joining HMS INDEFATIGABLE in July.

Of special interest is that 616 Squadron, the first to be equipped with the Meteor jet fighter, was based at the airfield before becoming operational from Manston in July 1944 intercepting German flying bombs with its new jets.

RAF Culmhead closed in August 1946 and later became home to a radio listening station during the Cold War.

It is currently a business park.  From January 2014 a 30 acre solar farm, one of the many to have sprung up all over Somerset, began generating 7MW on the site - an excellent use for a disused airfield.

A commemorative stone erected by the Airfields of Britain Conservation Trust in the business park car park.

 

Solar panels in the north east corner of the airfield.

Update 20th May 2021.

I visited the airfield yesterday and noted that since my last visit two very interesting information boards detailing its history have been erected near the commemorative stone.  Well worth a visit and read!