Worksop Airfield
Meteor jet fighters at RAF Worksop
Newark Air Museum Archive
Aviation Memorial Blyth
Howard Heeley
18 OTU Memorial Blyth
Howard Heeley
By Howard Heeley
Grid Ref: Sheet 120; SK625815; 1 mile E of Worksop
Opened: November 1943
Squadrons: 18 OTU; No.1 Group (Bomber Command) Communication Flight; Night Bomber Technical School; Bomber Command Bombing School; RAF Central Vision Training School; Engine Control Demonstration School; 211 AFS; 211 FTS; 4 FTS; 616 (County of South Yorkshire) Auxiliary Sqn
Aircraft: Wellington; Hurricane; Martinet; Oxford; Tomahawk; Lancaster; Meteor T7 & F8; Provost T1; Vampire T11; Meteor F8
Nationalities: Polish; Commonwealth
Things of note: Often referred to locally as Scofton and was originally built to assist Bircotes with satellite duties for Finningley. First closed in 1948, but reactivated in August 1952 to aid flight training for the Korean War.
A memorial at nearby Blyth (Grid Ref: Sheet 111; SK626868) a memorial commemorates two aircraft and crews that were lost close to the village during World War II. One of these was Wellington HE818 from No.18 OTU at RAF Worksop, which crashed approximately 200m from the site of the memorial on 7th March 1944. The memorial site is in leafy shade on the village green and was erected on 14th September 1997.
Current status: Officially closed in December 1960 and thereafter many buildings were demolished; the current existence of some parts of the main runway has not been confirmed.
A small part of the airfield was ‘preserved’ at Newark Air Museum. In the early 2000s work was undertaken to join two parts of the museum site together. As part of this project 500 tonnes of crushed concrete and asphalt were recovered from the former RAF Worksop runway on the Osberton Hall Estate near Scofton.
The Newark Air Museum is keen to locate any in-service photographs of aircraft and personnel that were operating from Worksop.
(This information was originally published in the 2011 booklet “Aviation in Nottinghamshire”, which was produced by the Newark Air Museum thanks to a Local Improvement Scheme grant from the Nottinghamshire County Council. Photographs sourced from the Newark Air Museum Archive.)