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

for solitary sheep and cattle grazers on its coastal marshes, wild fowlers, the tenders of
the oyster beds, and the beacon and lighthouse keepers. Occasionally, this quiet life was
dramatically punctuated by a shipwreck or a vessel stranding offshore. The acquisition
of the spit by the War Office during the First World War effectively closed it to public
access for nearly 80 years. During this time it was used by various defence research
establishments and by their very nature little was known about the significance of their
work. Its possession by the government transformed the history of Orford Ness from
one of local interest to one of national and international significance.
Aviation heritage
During the First World War military aviation underwent an extraordinary revolution
and at Orford Ness the technology of aerial machine guns, bombing and emergency
parachutes were developed as well as air combat tactics. This work continued during
the interwar period particularly into aerial bombing techniques. Of particular significance
during the late 1930s was the investigation of radio waves, or radar, to locate hostile
aircraft. Critically, the work carried out at Orford Ness confirmed the viability of this
technology and led to the setting up of a larger research station at Bawdsey Manor and
the development of the Chain Home network of radar stations. In the Second World
War, the establishment was primarily engaged in studying the vulnerability of different
types of aircraft and their components to hostile attack.
Nuclear weapons research
Two historians of Britain’s nuclear programme have commented that Cold War ‘defence
policy was dependent on the work of hundreds of scientists, engineers and technicians
engaged in research, producing fissile material and other special materials, and designing,
fabricating and testing nuclear devices and weapons’ (Arnold and Smith 2006, 13). The
structures at Orford Ness embody this link between science and high politics.
The facilities at Orford Ness were one part of a complex scientific and industrial
infrastructure that had been built up to equip the United Kingdom’s armed forces with
nuclear warheads and to maintain its policy of nuclear deterrence. The remoteness
of the site and the robustness of its laboratories were specifically designed to test
components and assembled weapons containing conventional high explosives. No
detailed accounts are available on the research programmes that were carried out
at Orford Ness. Nevertheless, the development phases may be set against known
weapons projects, which may give an indication of the variety of activities the range was
concerned with.
Prior to the arrival of AWRE in 1955 the existing bomb ballistics range played an
important role in the development of the casing for Britain’s first atomic bomb Blue
Danube. During these trials numerous casings were dropped off Orford Ness and their
flights paths monitored by telemetry teams housed on the spit. The origin of the AWRE
Orfordness lies in the feverish activities of the mid to late 1950s, when the establishment
was engaged in a succession of warhead programmes and associated trials. This work
would not only secure Britain’s nuclear deterrent forces through the provision of new
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