Forums Forums Wirral History : Chasing the Past Wirral History RAF Little Sutton

Little Sutton had a satellite airfield belonging to Grp 43 RMU RAF Sealand which was grass runway used primarily for pilot training, the aircraft being invariably DH82A De Havilland Tiger Moths.

The airfield opened in 1941 and closed 1946, during this time only two Tiger Moth's were destroyed, 16 Nov 1941 caused by stalling on approach and 9 Jan 1946 when one went into a tree on takeoff.

Down the (two) fields from the hanger is Little Sutton Reservoir and another building that looks Minstry of Defence. In the early 1970s a pipeline was put in connecting this reservoir to Crosshill Resevoir in Thingwall.

Next to this field is Sutton New Hall Farm which is the site of an ancient maonastic cemetary (and the old hall).

If you do any searches for any of this information beware that there are alot of RAF & SUTTON combinations around the country (not to mention Cemetaries).

Here are some pictures of the hanger and another building taken today (sorry about quality, old phone).

Nice find; thanks.

yerr thanks

very interesting

Never knew that fantastic find

Well done DD,great find.Thanks mate.

Wouldnt it be great goin around it with a metal detector imagine what was dropped.

yer bomb u'e

the romans dropped coins must be something worth digging up lol

I have been meaning to go back to this site for some better pictures ever since I did this in February, so here they are, better pictures and some internals. RAF Little Sutton.

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Aerial View 1946:

This looks to be a similiar set up to RAF South Cerney in Gloucestershire which originaly was flying training. I was working there when I met a bloke in a club in Rhyl and when I mentioned South Cerney he said what a coincidence I did my National Service there and my job was to tow a mobile control tower to Cricklade every morning for aircraft to do circuits and bumps. When I got back I went to Cricklade to have a look and found a disused airfield similar to Little Sutton. I think during the war there was extra need for pilots and small airfields such as this were hastily constructed to cope with the demand.

RAF South Cerney was just pre-war; 1936 or 37. No.3 FTS was based there.
Glad you're finding plenty to interest you here, joney. It's good to have someone around who's older than I am.

Thanks for the feedback. I know that lots of airfields were built from 1936 onwards when war clouds were looming by Hore Belisha as minister of war[the same guy that thought of beacons at zebra crossings as transport minister] I worked at Leconfield and the layout was more or less the same as South Cerney and I could find my way around easily.

This site must have been very close to the Prisoner of War camp in Badgers Rake Lane.
There is a post on here about the PoW camp. See https://www.wikiwirral.co.uk/forums...soner_of_war_camp_on_Bad.html#Post608894