After sunday lunch I made my mind up to venture out to Honiley and give my new camera a test drive at the former Lucas test houses tucked away in a quite corner of this former RAuxAF/RNVR Fighter airfield.RAF Honiley closed to flying on march 1957 and was maintained as a reserve airfield and was adminstered by RAF Gaydon until the site was sold in 1961.Lucas moved in some time after that.The most recent paperwork I could find dated from 1990 which should give you some idea as to how long lucas were on site.
It seemed to go wrong from the start as I was soon lost around the country lanes of honiley and also found the wrong point of entry to the site which was on the other side of the airfield.Add to this an event on the airfield as VW 4x4s were speeding around the site.I needed help to get back on track so one brief phone call to Bubblehead later, I was soon where I needed to be.In the deep undergrowth as i made my way to the site it gave me an insight into how it must have being for british and commonwealth forces fighting the MRLA during the emergency.Soon enougth my battle with nature gave way to a vista of faded industry.A return visit to the site a week later was interrupted by a pair of hapless pikies who had no joy looking for scrap metal and did not seem to spot me lurking in my hiding place as i tried to make up my mind as to what these blokes were up to, Did they work for Prodrive? or just pikies i wonder?
It seemed to go wrong from the start as I was soon lost around the country lanes of honiley and also found the wrong point of entry to the site which was on the other side of the airfield.Add to this an event on the airfield as VW 4x4s were speeding around the site.I needed help to get back on track so one brief phone call to Bubblehead later, I was soon where I needed to be.In the deep undergrowth as i made my way to the site it gave me an insight into how it must have being for british and commonwealth forces fighting the MRLA during the emergency.Soon enougth my battle with nature gave way to a vista of faded industry.A return visit to the site a week later was interrupted by a pair of hapless pikies who had no joy looking for scrap metal and did not seem to spot me lurking in my hiding place as i tried to make up my mind as to what these blokes were up to, Did they work for Prodrive? or just pikies i wonder?
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