Bawtry Hall itself is a large redbrick house in two storeys with attics which was erected around 1785 by Pemberton Milnes, a prosperous wool-merchant from
Wakefield,
Yorkshire. It descended in the Milnes family for several generations before being sold to Major George Peake, a well-known amateur pilot, in 1905. It is a Grade II* listed building. During the
Second World War the RAF took it over and it became an RAF command centre in July 1941. RAF Bawtry did not have its own airfield but instead took advantage of
RAF Bircotes, which was located nearby. Here the station based a number of communications aircraft. Bawtry Hall served the Royal Air Force from 1941–1984; first as HQ for No. 1 Group, Bomber Command during and after the Second World War, then as HQ No. 1 Group as part of
Strike Command up to and including the later stages of the
Cold War. The famous bombing of the airfield at
Port Stanley by
Vulcan bombers from
RAF Waddington during the
Falklands War was co-ordinated from the operations room at Bawtry Hall. RAF Bawtry became the centre of the
RAF Meteorological Service for many years It was purchased by the Action Partners Corporation in the late 1980s. No. 1 Group Bomber Command units based at RAF Bawtry comprised as follows: – +data from: During the
Miners' Strike in the mid-1980s, police officers were based at RAF Bawtry to provide a central Operations and co-ordination point on the
South Yorkshire /
Nottinghamshire border. == Present ==