Atomic Weapons Research Establishment. Orford ... - English Heritage

After the signing of the armistice in November 1918 the establishment was closed and
placed on a care and maintenance regime.
From 1924 the airfield was re-occupied as a satellite station of the Airplane and
Armament Experimental Establishment based at Martlesham Heath and it became the
Bombing Experimental Establishment. A 1928 record drawing shows that 36 buildings
were retained, although many remained deserted (Hanbury Brown 1991, 9). Due to
its remoteness one of main activities at Orford Ness was the investigation of bomb
ballistics, the study of the flight of objects moving under their own momentum and the
force of gravity. To support this work in the early 1930s the Bomb Ballistics Building was
built from which to monitor the fall of test bombs. Some First World War magazines
were also probably refurbished at this time and a number of smaller fuze magazines
constructed.
Increased activity at Orford Ness in the early 1930s is reflected by new construction
programmes. The range of experiments also diversified; probably around 1930 a
hexagonal building known as the Black Beacon was constructed on the spit to house
an experimental rotating radio beacon transmitter. Although, ships had used direction
finding by wireless for sometime it required the carrying of special equipment. This new
method removed this necessity and the Air Ministry was interested in how it might also
be applied to aircraft. The system was later developed for use in airfield homing beacons
(Anon 1931, 594). Adjacent to it a brick generator building was constructed to provide
power for it and other range infrastructure.
Early radar research
During the First World War attacks on British cities by German Zeppelins and later
by large bomber aircraft demonstrated the need to devise methods for predicting the
approach of hostile aircraft. One method that was developed from artillery detection
methods was sound, or acoustic, ranging. This involved the installation of sound mirrors
facing out to sea to detect aircraft engine noise and some research was undertaken at
Orford Ness in the 1920s into the development a binaural trumpet. Nevertheless, by
the 1930s increasing aircraft speed made it largely obsolete for aircraft finding and in
September 1935 work was suspended in favour of Radiolocation and Direction Finding,
or radar. In the previous years, a number of radio engineers had noticed the interference
created by moving objects, including aircraft, and it was realised that this phenomenon
might be used to locate aircraft.
Work on radar was inaugurated in 1935 by the Air Defence Research Subcommittee
of the Committee of Imperial Defence under the chairmanship of Henry Tizard. Initial
research was started by Robert Watson-Watt’s Radio Research Station team at the
National Physical Laboratory, Slough (Hanbury Brown 1991, 3-13; Gough 1993, 2-3). On
13 May 1935, a small group, who became known as ‘The Islanders’, moved to Orford
Ness to carry out their practical experiments. They occupied a couple of the former
RFC buildings at the south-west end of The Street and also erected a number of masts
for their experiments. Here they worked on the design of powerful transmitters,
receiving antennae, amplifiers and cathode tubes for displaying the results. On 16 June
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