Early history In early 1926, the
Bentley Priory estate, which dates from 1766, was broken up and the Priory building and 40 acres (comprising the present grounds) were sold to the Air Ministry for a sum thought to be about £25,000. On 26 May 1926,
Air Defence of Great Britain (ADGB) was formed at
Hillingdon House, at
RAF Uxbridge. The formation was radically reorganized with the creation of Bomber, Coastal, Fighter and Training Commands. The existing ADGB was dissolved and RAF Fighter Command emerged on 14 July 1936. It left Hillingdon House, at RAF Uxbridge, on this date and moved to Bentley Priory with its first Air Officer Commanding
Air Chief Marshal Sir
Hugh Dowding. Fighter Command Headquarters remained at the Priory until its merger with the other operational commands in 1968. A poem translated from
Thomas Gray's '''Luna Habitabilis' (''Cambridge 1797) is associated with the Priory. A copy of the poem was given to the air officer commanding 11 Group on 22 November 1989 by the Rt Hon The
Lord Harvington, who stated that he had intended reading it out to the
House of Commons at the end of the Battle of Britain, but the copy had been lost. At the time Harvington was wing commander in the RAuxAF and Conservative member for
St Pancras North. He felt it appropriate to quote this 18th-century prophecy: :"The time will come, when thou shalt lift thine eyes, :To watch a long drawn battle in the skies, :While aged peasants, too amazed for words, :Stare at the flying fleets of wond'rous birds, :England so long the mistress of the sea, :Where winds and waves confess her sovereignty, :Her ancient triumph yet on high shall bear, :And reign, the sovereign of the conquered air."
Fighter Command accompanying
King George VI and
Queen Elizabeth during a visit to Bentley Priory in September 1940.
RAF Fighter Command operated under Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding with Air Commodore A D
John Cunningham as his Senior Air Staff Officer (SASO) and Air Commodore Napier John Gill as Air Officer Administration (AOA). Because of his brilliant detailed preparation of Britain's air defences for the German assault, and his prudent management of his resources during the battle, Dowding is today generally given the credit for Britain's victory in the
Battle of Britain. Dowding's time leading Fighter Command left a lasting legacy on the organisation. His creation of the Operations and Filter Rooms, the essential elements of the Command, Control and Communications system, became the cornerstone of the Air Defence System. The system he developed gave air controllers the best chance of
scrambling fighter squadrons to intercept
Luftwaffe raids before they reached their targets. This rapid, flexible approach was essential because there were insufficient aircraft and crews to keep fighter patrols continuously airborne in 1940. He also played a significant part in encouraging research into night-fighter equipment and tactics. Historian and Dowding biographer,
Robert Wright, who served as Dowding's personal assistant in the
Battle of Britain, wrote in his book,
Dowding and the Battle of Britain, that even when faced with threats of retirement and constant rebuttal, Dowding continued to give his all to those under him and the RAF service. Dowding noted in a letter Air Ministry in early March 1940, that: Dowding's subsequent downfall has been attributed by some to his single-mindedness and perceived lack of diplomacy and political savoir faire in dealing with intra-RAF challenges and intrigues, most obviously the still, even now, hotly debated
Big Wing controversy in which a number of senior and active service officers had argued in favour of large set-piece air battles with the Luftwaffe as an alternative to Dowding's successful
Fabian strategy. Another reason often cited for his removal, but characterised by some contemporary commentators more as a pretext, was the difficulty of countering German nighttime bombing raids on British cities. Bentley Priory continued to act as the Headquarters of Fighter Command throughout the Second World War. It assumed additional importance as the Air planning headquarters for D-Day, as the planning for the full operation was conducted at near Portsmouth, with Montgomery, Eisenhower and Churchill attending a nearby church the evening before the assault. Much of the detailed air planning work was carried out at Kestrel Grove just a few hundred yards away (this building still stands and is now a retirement home). On
D-Day, the landings were monitored by
King George VI,
Winston Churchill and U.S. General
Dwight D. Eisenhower in the
Allied Expeditionary Air Force War room in the Priory's underground bunker.
Anti-Aircraft Command On 1 April 1939, HQ
Anti-Aircraft Command (AAC) was formed under
General Alan Brooke, but on 28 July 1939, he was suddenly moved to command the British Forces and General Sir
Frederick Alfred Pile took over. Anti-Aircraft Command then moved to "Glenthorn" in the grounds of Bentley Priory.
Wellington crash New Cemetery of the five
Free Czechoslovak airmen whose
Wellington crashed at Bentley Priory in 1940 On 16 October 1940 a Vickers Wellington of the
Czechoslovak-crewed
No. 311 Squadron RAF collided with a cable of one of the
barrage balloons protecting Bentley Priory. The aircraft had been on a bombing mission from
RAF East Wretham to
Kiel, but suffered
icing and the failure of its compass and radio and was badly off-course. The Wellington crash resulted in the death of five of its six crew. The tail gunner survived with serious burns. He later retrained as a fighter pilot and served with
No. 312 (Czechoslovak) Squadron RAF.
Royal Observer Corps The Observer Corps moved to RAF Bentley Priory from its original location at
RAF Uxbridge, along with Dowding and Fighter Command, in July 1936 and remained at the Priory until it was stood down in December 1995. The Observer Corps was one of the cornerstones of Lord Dowding's air defence system and he said later in his despatch following the conclusion of the Battle of Britain: When the Corps' first Commandant
Edward Masterman stood down in April 1936,
Alfred Warrington-Morris replaced him and took control of the Observer Corps in the important period immediately prior to the
Second World War. He oversaw the move of HQ Observer Corps to Bentley Priory and the Corps' adoption by
RAF Fighter Command. He also controlled the Corps during the memorable events of the
Battle of Britain and was still at the helm when the Observer Corps was granted the title
Royal to become the Royal Observer Corps and became a uniformed branch of the RAF in April 1941. Warrington-Morris was
Mentioned in dispatches in July 1940. Initially the Observer Corps' presence at Bentley Priory included not only the small headquarters' staff of a dozen officers and support staff but also around sixty spare time observers who filled essential plotting tasks in the Bentley Priory operations rooms. In 1955 the observers relocated to a new dedicated ROC operations centre in nearby
Watford. The Royal Observer Corps was stood down on 30 September 1991 and, in 1992, a Royal Observer Corps stained glass window to mark the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, was installed in the officers' mess at RAF Bentley Priory. The original
Royal Banner, presented in 1966, was laid up at
St Clement Danes Church in the Strand in 1991. A new banner, presented by
Elizabeth II at Bentley Priory in July 1991, was laid up at the Rotunda at the
RAF College Cranwell in Lincolnshire.
Post-war operations Princess Elizabeth first visited the Priory in November 1950. On 30 April 1968, Fighter Command was amalgamated with other operational commands to form Strike Command. Bentley Priory also became the Administrative Headquarters for
RAF Strike Command, although this function moved to High Wycombe in 1972.
Fire In the evening of 21 June 1979 a major fire destroyed most of the main staircase as well the Dowding Room.
Cubitts had been carrying out refurbishment work and the company's insurance policy covered most of the repair work, which cost £3.1 million.
Closure RAF Bentley Priory was latterly home to the
Defence Aviation Safety Centre,
Air Historical Branch (AHB) and RAF Ceremonial. As there was no enduring operational use for RAF Bentley Priory, however, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) released the site as part of its Greater London estate consolidation project,
Project MoDEL (Ministry of Defence Estates London). Project MoDEL is making a major contribution to the consolidation of the Defence Estate in Greater London through the delivery of three key outputs: the development of an integrated 'core site' at
RAF Northolt; the re-location of the London-based units; and the disposal of surplus sites. Accordingly, DASC, AHB and RAF Ceremonial relocated to RAF Northolt in 2008 following the completion of their new accommodation. A total of £180 million GBP ($295 million US in 2008) of the £300 million GBP released from Project MoDEL has been re-invested back into RAF Northolt. A final dinner was held for the Battle of Britain veterans in July 2007 to celebrate the role of the building and those who worked in it in preventing Hitler's planned air invasion of Britain in 1940. The sunset ceremony was carried out by the
Queen's Colour Squadron and there was a flypast by the
Battle of Britain Memorial Flight and a
Eurofighter Typhoon. The salute was taken by the
Station Commander Squadron Leader Phil Reid, the
chief of the Air Staff Air Chief Marshal Sir Glenn Torpy and
Air Commodore (Ret) Pete Brothers, Chairman of the Battle of Britain Fighter Association. The station officially closed the following day, and all remaining lodger units moved to RAF Northolt. ==Bentley Priory Museum==