Description

Airfields are as important to the history of Lincolnshire as coalmines are to the West Riding, or shipyards to the Clyde. While relatively few remain active today, many more have long since fallen into disuse and are now in danger of being forgotten as nature reasserts itself and the bulldozers clear away old buildings for re-development or farmland. The days when abandoned RAF stations were automatically considered blemishes on the landscape are now very much in the past and a great deal of interest is being shown from people of all backgrounds in the future of these historic sites. Each one has its own unique story, both triumphal and tragic, and individual character which has added something to the local scene. However much opinions differ on the visual merit of buildings, it cannot be denied that airfields have a very special place in the landscape and this alone justifies serious study. In this book three writers of contrasting backgrounds have worked together to shed fresh light of the airfields of Britain’s most celebrated aeronautical county. Two of them, one a RAF officer and the other a farmer, are born and bred in Lincolnshire and have watched the airfields change around them throughout the post-war period. They have also spent many years researching the historical background of the places they know so well. The third author is an outsider with a more theoretical interest in airfields as a feature of the modern landscape planning. Between them they have tried to show that airfields are by no means a temporary phenomenon, but an integral part of Britain’s environmental heritage and an exciting frontier for the industrial archaeologist.