Museum honours two key World War Two RAF stations

51 minutes ago

John DevineWitchford

News image — Thomas Brand hopes the museum will preserve the legacy of two Second World War RAF stations

John Devine/BBC A man with short brown hair swept back and with a stubbly facial hair, he has dark framed glasses on and a white open necked shirt. Behind him are displays at a museum to do with Lancaster bomber aircraft. — Thomas Brand hopes the museum will preserve the legacy of two Second World War RAF stations

A museum has paid tribute to two former RAF stations that played vital roles in Bomber Command operations during World War Two.

The RAF Witchford and Mepal Museum has opened on Lancaster Way Business Park in Ely, Cambridgeshire, to show the contribution RAF Witchford and RAF Mepal made to the Lancaster bombers' offensive.

Grovemere Property bought RAF Witchford from the Ministry of Defence after the war and redeveloped the site.

"It really is just amazing that we are now home to all these wonderful items and can ensure that the experiences and sacrifices of those connected with the two airfields are remembered and understood by future generations," Thomas Brand, from the firm, said.

In 2024 the Brand family, which owns Grovemere Property, decided to create a new free purpose-built museum following the closure of the RAF Witchford Exhibition, which was located in the foyer of an office building on the business park.

John Devine/BBC Three lights running left to right, green, amber and red. They are to allow the public access to the facility, there are signs around the lights with safety information. — The museum is an unmanned facility with the public gaining entrance via a traffic light system taken from an original Lancaster bomber aircraft

Brand, a joint managing director of Grovemere Property whose grandfather bought the former RAF Witchford airfield, said the origins of the new museum could be traced to an excavation of a Lancaster bomber crash site at nearby Coveney in 1995.

"The project was supported by Grovemere Property, after local historian Barry Aldridge, who spent decades documenting RAF Witchford's history, got in touch," he said.

Aldridge, who died in 2016, had connections to the airfield that stretched back to childhood, when he explored its derelict buildings.

Artefacts recovered during the Coveney dig included a Lancaster engine, which later became a key exhibit in the previous RAF Witchford Exhibition, and is now the centrepiece at the new museum.

RAF Witchford and Mepal Museum An old black-and-white photo of a group of airmen in uniform of the RAF with the late Queen Elizabeth II with her parents at RAF Witchford. — One of the exhibition's photographs shows Princess Elizabeth visiting RAF Witchford in 1944 with King George VI and Queen Elizabeth

Brand said that many local people had donated items for the museum, which had given him "goosebump" moments.

"Recently a man gave me an old suitcase which contained his late father's RAF uniform, his medals, flight logs, flying helmet and a personal journal that documented his time in the RAF, it was incredible to see," he said.