Recent Additions

Recent Additions

New for 2011

During the winter months work went ahead to improve the NAAFI area. This provides more space for our customers to sit down, new work-tops in the kitchen and an improved sales area.

Here we see Lola Lamour, along wth some of the reglar kitchen helpers, performing the official opening ceremony. Below we see some of our customers.

Beside the new NAAFI counter is our new shop with a whole range of exciting things to buy.

In spite of the harsh winter much hard work has resulted in the old "Fresh Produce and Ration Store" being rebuilt as a Meetings Room.

The Tiger Moth fuselage and Mew Gull replica have been completed and are now on show (see left) and work on the Lancaster cockpit also continues. Restoration work is also continuing on the Bloodhound SAM (see below).

The Thorpe Camp Amateur Radio Group has also had a very good year (2010) with many visitors to the "radio shack" which they are planning to extend. They are also a registered examination centre (for radio amarteurs) and have helped over 60 people in the past three years.
The Thorpe Camp Visitor Centre is one of only a few museums to be awarded its own call sign. So speak to them at GB4TCM or visit their website at "beam.to/tcrm".

New for 2010

We are very proud to have achieved the status of "Quality Assured Visitor Attraction" by Enjoy Britain.

We welcomed some new helpers into the team. This has enabled a number of different projects to be started while others are being continued which will lead to new displays in the near future. The only project completed for this year is a total refurbishment of the ticket office!

Other projects included work on the reconstruction of a Lancaster cockpit, the building of a Mew (aircraft), the fitting out of the old shower block to form a meetings room and very early preparations to rebuild the last of the original buildings on the site - the old ration store.

The Lightning has been repainted in its original livery.

A "new" SAM (Surface to Air Missile) has been acquired which is much more complete that the one we already have. However, it is in poor condition and will need a lot of TLC before it goes on public display.

New for 2009

The Picket-Hamilton Fort or "Disappearing Pill-box" was designed in 1940 for airfield defense and there were three at Woodhall Spa. Two were destroyed years ago but the third has just been rescued (all 12 tons of it) and is now on display -- the only one to be preserved in Lincolnshire. It could be hydraulically raised and lowered so that, for most of the time, it did not interfere with aircraft movements. Visit us to find out much more.
	A display of the skills which people had to adopt in order to provide the necessities of a wartime wedding when practically everything was rationed.
Make do and mend was essential. A display of needleworking tools and skills.

New in 2008

We are honoured by Sqn/Ldr A. Pinder MBE, BSc, Officer Commanding the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight becoming President of the Preservation Group.

A lot of work has gone on during the winter 2007/08, in particular a new buiding on the site of the old Shower Block has been started. When completed later in the year it will house the Fairchild Argus and the DeHaviland Tiger Moth thus releasing space for other new exhibits.

The picture shows Nigel Press (standing) talking to John Pearl at the launch of his new book entitled "We Wanted Wings". A most interesting read. Click for more details and how to obtain your copy.

The many books donated to Thorpe Camp over the years have been collected together to form a library and are being catalogued. They will soon become available to researchers.

New in 2007

The old accommodation block, which was used by the NAAFI workers, has been rebuilt and is now our new workshop area. Visitors can view whatever work is in progress -- currently restoration of a DeHavilland Tiger Moth (G-ANNN). The Tiger Moth was adopted by the RAF as the standard training aeroplane, almost every wartime pilot would have flown one.	Click to read the history of our Tiger Moth.
	The new workshop has released the old workshop for display purposes. The main exhibit is our Fairchild Argus. During WWII these planes were used mainly for ferrying RAF personnel between airfields.
The Radio Shack, which was opened last year, has an expanding display of WWII radio equipment and, using more modern techniques, is used regularly by members of the Thorpe Camp Radio Group
Two new models show the V2 site at Watten and the V1 site at Siracourt, both bombed from Woodhall Spa in 1944.
	Finally, the Arrester Gear is now on view again along with displays and explantions of how it all worked.

New in 2006

On Saturday, 26th November 2005 we took delivery of a Lightning XM 192. One of the 28 Mk 1a's produced. it made its first flight on 25th May 1961. It flew with 111 Squadron (and was the subject of an Airfix kit) and then with second line units, 226 Operational Conversion Unit, Binbrook and Wattisham Target Facilities Flights, before being retired in 1973.

It then became the 'gate guardian' at RAF Wattisham before being bought by Charles Ross who placed it on loan with the Bomber County Aviation Museum at Hemswell. This museum has now closed and Charles has placed the aircraft on loan to us at Thorpe Camp where it stands for all to see.

The Imperial War Museum's display which toured the country in 2005 called "Their Past - Our Future" has been gifted to Thorpe Camp and in now on permanent display in the old NAAFI. If you missed the report on our part in this event, click here. And here is a brief glimpse of the extensive display . . . . .

Alec Bates, who flew from Woodhall Spa on 21 missions as Radio Operator with 617 Sqn officially opened our new "Radio Shack". This has been set up by the Pilgrim Amateur Radio Club who will regularly man this new feature
.

Alec tries out the Radio Shack's facilities.

Various exhibits relating to the V2 Rocket attacks have been grouped together in one of the new nissen huts.

There is also a new ARP Wardens HQ (left) and . . .

. . . (below) new displays of fighting vehicles, bomb fuses and block houses.