Morpeth

55°07'51"N 001°44'07"W

runway: 04/22 - 1266x45m/4150x150ft - tarmac/asphalt
runway: 10/28 - 996x45m/3270x150ft - tarmac/asphalt
runway: 16/34 - 996x45m/3270x150ft - tarmac/asphalt

Morpeth airfield (RAF Morpeth, also known as Tranwell Airfield) was an airfield 430 kilometers north of London.
The airfield was constructed in 1941 and opened in April 1942. Morpeth featured 3 large hangars and about 17 smaller blister hangars. It became home to No. 4 Air Gunnery School, which trained about 4000 students during the war. No. 4 Air Gunnery School was to be equipped with Blackburn Bothas and Westland Lysanders. The Botha was intended as a torpedo bomber, and it had been ordered in large numbers off the drawing board.
But when the first Bothas entered service with Coastal Command they proved to be hopelessly underpowered and within weeks were relegated to a training role. The Lysander had a more respectable background and is better remembered for its more glamorous role with No 161 Squadron, landing SOE agents by night in fields in occupied Europe. At Morpeth, however, Lysanders were used as a stop-gap target tug until replaced by the specialist aircraft Miles Martinet. It took about five weeks to get the new unit up and running and the flying training programme eventually started on 31 May 1942. A dozen accidents involved the much disliked Bothas, eight of them in four months preceding their replacement by Avro Ansons in July 1943.


No photos have been located

Eventually, demand for air gunners diminished and in December 1944 the Air Ministry decided to close No 4 AGS. By then, the unit had an establishment of nearly 1,700 personnel, including 440 WAAFs. Sixty nine air gunners' courses had been completed and the remaining 73 trainees on Course 70 were transferred to No. 3 AGS at Castle Kennedy to complete their training.
After a few months on Care and Maintenance, the air base reopened for No. 80 Operational Training Unit. The was training Free French pilots to fly Spitfires, and remained for three months until they moved to RAF Ouston in July 1945, a pre-war station with better facilities. The airfield was then transferred to No 261 Maintenance Unit.
It finally closed in July 1948.

After the airfield was sold off it was largely returned to agricultural use. Portions of the airfield still exist though. Several buildings and hangars still are standing. An underground control room can be found behind the actual airfield. Several taxiways and dispersals, as well as portions of its runways also still exist. The latter are used for a car boot sale every Sunday.
A group proposed to reactivate the airfield as Tranwell airfield in 2009. Another group proposed to set up a wind farm at the former airfield in October 2011.


Overview of the former airfield and its dispersals in 2006 (Google Earth)


Overview of the airfield in 2009 (tranwell.wordpress.com).