St Twynnels ROTOR BUNKER

In the summer of 1940, a west coast Chain Home (CH) radar station called RAF Warren was established at SR92459757, in July of the same year a Chain Home Low (CHL) radar station with a duplicate was built at SR92149727 and called RAF St. Twynnells, this is 1/4 mile south west of RAF Warren. In 1941 a brick combined transmitter and receiver block replaced the earlier CHL huts at St. Twynnells.

Both Warren and St Twynnells were involved in trials which took place in December 1941 to test the ability of IFF Mk III to respond in various kinds of radar station. A total of eight ground radar installations, seven aircraft and a sloop demonstrated the value of IFF Mk III to British and American observers and universal adoption was recommended.

In the 1950’s when the ROTOR radar project was set up, a GCI station was constructed at SR94189741 in an R6 two level surface bunker. This was also called RAF St. Twynnells and was just over a mile from RAF Warren. The target date for completion was 18th September 1953.

After closure, the site reverted back to the local farmer and the majority of buildings associated with the station remain largely intact. Only the standard RAF style guardhouse (slightly shorter than the standard ROTOR guardhouse) is in separate ownership. Standing alongside the road it has been converted into a house and externally remains largely unaltered except for the veranda, which has been modified to form an extra room.

The standby generator house stands at one end of the operations block and is now an empty shell, at the other end is the transformer building which still retains its rusting transformer. One radar plinth stands in the field along with a small building with some electrical equipment, this may have been for the mobile Type 11 radar but this has not been confirmed. Closer to the road there is an underground Royal Observer Corps post, this has been disused since 1991.

On the opposite side of the road there are four more radar plinths and the Type 80 Mk3 modulator building. The disused radio station in the field to the north of the modulator building is not believed to be anything to do with the site.

St. Twynnells was one of 5 R6 bunkers built, the others being at Hack Green (later converted into an RGHQ and now a museum), Hope Cove (later converted into an RGHQ which closed in 1993 and now used for storage), Langtoft (a scrap dealers store) and Treleaver (largely derelict with some farm storage). Of the three R6 bunkers that were not put to later government uses St. Twynnells is by far the best preserved. Although all the radar equipment has been removed much of the plant remains intact as do some of the original signs and situation boards. Unusually for a derelict ROTOR building, all the flimsy internal partition walls are intact and in good condition, many retaining their original paint. There is some standing water on the lower floor but this is ‘below the floorboards’ and rarely more than an inch in depth. Most of the surviving equipment, plant and artefacts are on this floor.

Portions of report from Sub Brit pages
Written by Nick Catford on 26 October 2002.
page can be found here:
https://www.subbrit.org.uk/sites/st-twynells-rotor-radar-station/

My Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattswilli/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1228424283971624/

email me at me@thematthewwilliams.com

Also present on this explore were
Exploring with Gav
Exploring with Johnny Boots


Equipment used:
DJI Mavic Zoom DRONE
Sony A7s ii with Samyang 14mm full frame lens
Dji Pocket 2 camera
Insta 360x R
Adobe Premiere Pro 2020
Ryzen 5950X
65GB Ram
Windows 10 (No Apple shiz here)
Nvidia RTX 3950 GFX

#Abandonedplaces #Abandonedplacesuk #urbexuk #undergroundbunker #urbexexploration #urbex_europe_ #urbextreme #urbexphotography #DerelictBuildings #frozenintime #timecapsule