Goonhilly: a walk through history Linking the Lizard Countryside Partnership

Oblique aerial view of RAF Dry Tree during Sheet 1 the war, taken from the north-east ©IWM WORLD WAR TWO

Charlie Johns, Senior Some of the most obvious historical remains on Goonhilly are less Archaeologist, than 100 years old. But they still bring an air of mystery…what, for Cornwall Council example, are those straight lines of small, vegetation-covered

Goonhilly mounds marching across the heath?

Portreath airbases to incoming During World War Two, radar How did the radar stations work? stations across the country were raids. The buildings of the transmitter station are now During World War Two, a ring of set up to detect and monitor beneath the Earth Station site, but radar stations – called Chain Home – from the receiver station roof you approaching enemy aircraft and was built along the coastline of south can spot other buildings, including alert the RAF to potential attacks. and east Britain. Radar detection air raid shelters and a small works by transmitting pulses of radio One of these stations – RAF Dry Tree building called the ‘friend or foe’ waves that bounce off objects and – was built at Goonhilly, and many of cubicle from which enemy aircraft are returned to a receiver dish or the buildings are still there, albeit in would be identified by sight. Many antenna, enabling the location, speed varying states of repair. of the buildings, however, have an and height of objects, such as aircraft, uncertain function, as there is no to be monitored. Although you can’t go inside, you can site map from the time RAF Dry climb onto the roof of the largest Tree was operational. remaining building – the receiver This is what happened at RAF Dry block [B] – and enjoy a panoramic Tree. Radio wave pulses were view of the heathlands, while transmitted from four 360-foot tall imagining how beneath your feet steel transmitter masts, and received radar operators (mainly women from by antennae located on two tall the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force) wooden towers next to the receiver would have busily monitored the block: you can still see the concrete skies round the clock, alerting the bases for the latter immediately to the nearby RAF Predannack or RAF south of the receiver block.

Radar operator ©IWM So, what are those lines of Goonhilly is flat and open, and close to the south of the mounds? country, and so there were fears that German gliders would use it to land. An ingenious solution was found to prevent this: lines of earth mounds were built, each supporting a tall pole, thus stopping a glider from landing. In fact, no enemy gliders ever tried to land on Goonhilly, but they would have found it difficult.

The poles are long gone, but the mounds remain, covered in heather and other heathland flora.

http://www.the-lizard.org Numbers in square brackets refer to the walk directions