NHER 12414 (Monument) - Harling Road or Roudham airfield

Site of Harling Road or Roudham airfield.
26 July 1978. Visit.
In use 1916 to March 1920, and said to have been used by Dakotas in 1944 after D-Day.
Hangars remain and are used by Roudham Transport.
Photograph of crashed FE2b in (S14) (copy Bolingbroke Collection). Information from Norfolk and Suffolk Aviation Museum via [1].
Much of area now waste land, much covered by modern army buildings, and others in ruins but still later than airfield.
However one large hangar remains in good order to southeast. Corrugated iron with brick corner pillars.
Also an Observer Corps Lookout Post.
E. Rose (NAU), 26 July 1978.

The army buildings, including those to the south of the road west of the hangars, were the wartime quarters of the 513rd US Army Ordnance Corps. Information from [1], see notes in file.
E. Rose (NAU), 7 April 1988.

1993. Hangar still remains. Parish council have asked that it be scheduled or listed.
E. Rose (NLA), 25 March 1993.

October 1946. RAF air photograph shows remains of two circular structures, joined, with another more amorphous structure to south at TL 9735 8772. Thought to be a searchlight battery; information from [1].
B.Cushion (NLA), 11 November 1998.

September 2012. Norfolk NMP.
The former airfield described above is visible on aerial photographs (S1-S12) during World War Two and later, and is clearly in use as a storage depot and camp. Large areas of Nissen huts and structures have been defined as extents of area in the mapping.
On the earliest available photographs (S1), in 1943, it is possible to discern at least two rows of tents at TL 9772 8775. It is possible that the site performed a training function as a number of possible practice or slit trenches are visible centred on TL 9775 8775.
The searchlight battery described above is also clearly visible from 1943-1951 (S1-S10), centred on TL 9737 8771.
A railway siding is visible entering the area is visible on the aerial photographs from 1943 until at least October 1946 (S6), and possibly is still visible on photographs from January 1947 (S7), and this reinforces the interpretation of the site as a depot.
A sewage treatment area for the site is also visible centred at TL 9657 8740. A circular treatment structure is clearly visible along with six rectangular features with triangular ends, which appear to be some form of filtration beds.
The main part of the depot is clearly still in use as an industrial park on recent photographs (S13).
E. Bales (NMP), 11 September 2012.