RAF Air Defence Radar Museum
RRH Neatishead Horning Norfolk NR12 8YB
A short – 10-minute – walk across the fields from the riverside village of Horning, the RAF Air Defence Radar Museum is a bit of hidden gem. Based in part of what was RAF Neatishead, which shut down in 2004 but retains a much smaller radar facility, its labyrinth of rooms and corridors was a key centre of airspace surveillance operations during World War 2 and the Cold War. There are rooms devoted to the Battle of Britain and a brilliant replica of the Neatishead operations room in 1942, complete with vintage equipment and the mannikins to operate it – excellently done, and very real, as well as a nostalgic glimpse of recent history. But our favourite bit is the Cold war operations room, which monitored most British airspace during the 1950s and 1960s and has been left pretty much as it was then, with banks of screens and a board on which operatives mastered the art of writing backwards. Next door a room remembers the glory days of nearby RAF Coltishall – also closed a few years back.
