Evanton

57°39'58"N 004°18'22"W


RNAS Evanton - HMS Fieldfare station crest

Runway: 04/22 - 1000x50yds - asphalt
Runway: 09/27 - 1250x50yds - asphalt

Evanton airfield (RAF Evanton, also known as RNAS Evanton, HMS Fieldfare and Novar airfield) was an airfield 20 kilometers north of Inverness, Scotland.
The airfield was established in 1922 to support the Royal Navy's Home Fleet when docked at Invergordon. It was intended to be a replacement for Delny House, which was rapidly becoming too small. Initially the airfield was known as Novar airfield, after the estate that owned the land. Naval aviation was in the hands of the Fleet Air Arm of the RAF at the time and HMS Fieldfare was serviced from nearby RAF Leuchars.


Westland Walrus aircraft at Novar in 1923 (Coll. John Robertson via theinvergordonarchive.org).

In 1937 the decision was made to expand the airfield and turn it into a training base. On Empire Day 1939 RAF Evanton was the most northerly RAF Station to open its gates to the public. it attracted a queue of cars one mile long and about 9,000 visitors. By the time World War II started the Royal Navy moved to Scapa Flow to be out of range of German bombers. The RAF began using the base and called it RAF Evanton. By 1943 it had become a Coastal Command maintenance facility. In October 1944 the airfield was transferred to the Royal Navy as RNAS Evanton, but better known as HMS Fieldfare and later it became a maintenance yard with storage for up to 250 aircraft.


By 1936, the airfield had more permanent structures, including a water tower. At the end of the new hangar two aircraft (probably Fairey 3s) are visible. (Coll. John Robertson via theinvergordonarchive.org).


RNAS Evanton as it looked in the final years of the war (royalnavyresearcharchive.org.uk)

Officially the airfield closed in 1947 and it was sold off in 1948. Internet sources (and Wikipedia) claim it was used in the 1950s for secret (balloon) flights. Officially the balloons were to help in meteorological forecasting, but in reality they were equipped with spy cameras to assist with the ongoing Cold War defence effort. Since the 1970s parts of the site have been used to house industries associated with the North Sea oil boom. One of them built a plant for the production of flexible pipes, which were loaded onto ships via a new long pier. Despite the fact that this is well past its peak, Deephaven Industrial Estate -as it is called now- remains busy. Most of the buildings remained until early 2011, but then most were pulled almost overnight.


The former airfield and the long pier as photographed in 2004 (Google Earth).