Once again I have delved into my back catalogue of many, many explores.

RAF Bicester was a local site to me which was decommissioned in 2004, although there was (and still is) a gliding club operating off the airfield to this day. English Heritage, who keep a record of old and important buildings, ruins etc over here state that it is the most complete, original and unmodified example of a pre-war airfield in the country, and of national importance being the home of a WWII bomber command squadron and the location of the first flight of the prototype Handley Page Halifax aircraft in 1939. Almost all the buildings on site are unchanged since they were constructed in 1916 and thankfully nowadays the airfield side where the below photos come from is now home to a heritage museum which is slowly restoring all the buildings on site back to their original condition.

The communal area of the site with the barrack blocks, mess halls and other buildings was taken over by the Defence Logistics Organisation who used that half of the site for the development and testing of military clothing up until 2010.

My first visit here was the first ever outing for my DSLR camera in August 2011, if anything at least it might show how far I have come since that time! I visited here a few times between August and December 2011 with my last visit being on Christmas Eve of that year. The photos are in a pretty random order just following the order of my visits.

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On to the communal/DLO side, which had been empty less than a year by the time I visited. Stripping out and conversion into housing was getting started and most buildings were locked up and empty, their contents arranged neatly on various grassy areas around the site. Avoiding the CCTV cameras we found an old decontamination bunker and one single building that was accessible and struck a little bit of gold.


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Thanks for looking

I really like number 9 but the painting in 13 also caught my eye. And those staircases in the parking lot in 26 are pretty hilarious! Looks like a pretty cool location and I'm very glad to hear that it is at least being partially restored. Your backlog adventure are quite interesting; thanks for sharing!

The contractors had cut all the external fire escapes off and laid them out on the tarmac which was a weird sight, we had a little climb over them.

The communal side is now fully converted and the heritage museum has partially opened although its a long process. There was a lot of talk back in 2011 about the sites future and I'm very glad common sense and historical preservation won out against development.

Great job on these! Intrigued by pics 1,2 and 4. Gotta love that ivy crawling up the water tower too. 9 does call out to me as well.

2nd pic is great, looks very inviting. Love your posts, alway's informative with background info

#2 for me as well, got my attention...almost like a video game scene where you know when you step out of the safety of the sunlight , s@*t is about to happen.