NHER 59093 (Building record) - Fighter Pen/Salvage Compound, Former RAF Coltishall (Building 93)

The fighter pen lies at the north west boundary of the runway perimeter track, and includes the attached air-raid shelter and two hardstandings. The fighter pen is known as a type A which was constructed in accordance with Air Ministry drawing 11070/40 and housed two single-engine fighters such as Spitfires or Hurricanes. It is the only remaining fighter pen at the base to remain substantially intact, and unusually, without associated earthworks. The roughly E-shaped pen comprises a single tarmac floor for two single-engine fighters, a central wall and enclosing walls in an arc which stand some 3m high. The Coltishall fighter pen is a very unusual example constructed of sand-bags, now vitrified. It has an opening width of 20m, an air-raid shelter and former brick storage shed to the front.
This area is a Scheduled Monument.
In later years the fighter pen was used as a salvage compound.
A. Cattermole (HES), 21 May 2013.

The aggregate used for the sandbags was from the coast/marine, so probably has a high salt content.
Some bags were removed from the pen around 20 years ago by 41 Squadron to build a barbeque (still extant) in a small coppice just west of the track to Building 139.
D. Gurney (HES), 15 May 2015.