How Britain's wartime airfields went from bombing raids to bird roosts

RAF Tilstock was built in a hurry. It was June 1942, and across Britain the government was taking over farmland to facilitate the emergency construction of airfields. This site, near Whitchurch, was one of around 20 airfields built in Shropshire – just one of dozens of counties.

Those airfields played a major role in World War II, and RAF Tilstock was no exception. Initially a training airfield, it later became a major hub for bomber planes such as the Stirling and the Halifax, as well as gliders. 

At the height of the war, there were hundreds of similar airfields in operation across Britain. Many were only in use for a limited time and 80 years on from VE Day, only a few are still recognizable. 

Hidden in the surrounding countryside, now hosting a solar farm, industry and a horse breeding stables, the site – now known as Tilstock Airfield – still shows the secrets of its past. 

"You can see the fact that it was an airfield through the surviving hangars in the woods," says Toby Neal, author of the book Shropshire Airfields. "There's some derelict huts and buildings and you can still see the outline of the runways. Tilstock had three runways, which would be very typical, with the longest one in line with the prevailing wind." 

One of those runways, part of which is still intact, is in regular use today by a local skydiving club. 

"This is all that remains of the original airfield," explains Alex Busby, Chief Instructor at the Skydive Tilstock Freefall Club. "We've got a short piece of concrete which is about 800 meters long, and this is the runway we use to take off and land when we're skydiving." 

Nearby, at the side of a busy road, dozens of decaying military barracks are a reminder of the 2,000 personnel who served at RAF Tilstock, some of whom died in service. 

"They came from all over the world," says Neal. "Australia, New Zealand, India, what was then occupied Europe, Czechoslovakia, free French, and obviously from all over Britain as well.

"So this is a place of many memories for people. This is where they lived for a certain part of their life, they did their duty here for the war effort. We should remember them for that reason. It's part of our heritage and we owe them honor and duty to respect that."

RAF Tilstock was primarily a training airfield, and the process was hazardous, with numerous reports of crashes and incidents of planes overshooting the runway. But like all military airfields, RAF Tilstock was also a target for the German Luftwaffe, which is why much of its activity was never publicly documented.

Today, it is still possible to locate the bunkers and air raid shelters buried surrounding woodland and the command headquarters hidden underground. 

"It's really important to preserve it, because it's an aspect of history that isn't really spoken of in terms of details," says David Broad, a volunteer researcher from the local Whitchurch Museum and Archives. 

"We all know about the Second World War. We know about where the bases were, but the papers at the time didn't really talk about much." 

The original wartime control tower is the only part of RAF Tilstock which has been successfully restored. It has become a place of peace, a dedicated bird roost, its surroundings transformed into a nature reserve to conserve a rare butterfly. 

The scale of the RAF war effort was extraordinary and marked the turning point in the war. Historians hope the surviving airfields can be conserved and their wartime contribution is remembered.