The Name
Figure 1: the official name of the camp from the Operations Record Book 1944
The Name
RAF Regiment Depot, Belton Park, Grantham was the official name (figure 1).
Despite that title, the camp was located outside the 1690 walls of Belton Park in the Lordship of Londonthorpe or parish of Londonthorpe and Harrowby Without. The camp's main entrance was just outside the south east corner of Belton Park, on Londonthorpe Lane.
Numerous publications have described the Depot as RAF Belton Park or RAF Alma Park, but contemporaneous descriptions never used such titles. It was referred to either, by its official name, or Belton Park Camp, or RAF Regiment Depot, Grantham, or because there was an officer training cadet unit as RAF Regiment O.T.C.U. An abbreviation used for the RAF Regiment by members themselves was R.A.F.R. (Pickering 2002, Tales of a Bomber Command WAAF Woodfield Publishing, page 134). Unit movement documents referred to either Grantham or Depot Grantham.
Figure 2: first mapped reference to Alma Park (centre left).
The term Alma Park appears from November 1946 (column five, first paragraph), after the Depot moved to Catterick. It is the name of the housing estate that made use of the former military buildings, today the Alma Park Industrial Estate (figure 2). Alma Wood on the limestone escarpment to the east of the site provided the name.
Authors have referred to Alma House as the initial headquarters of the Regiment. We cannot trace any such house; it appears neither on the pre-WW2 Ordnance Survey maps nor on the 1885 OS map. An estate map from the early 19th century when the land was under the ownership of Sir William Earle Welby who was Lord of the Manor at Denton again has no house marked in the vicinity. It is possible that so called, Alma House was confused with Elmer House in Elmer Road, Grantham that was used as the RAF officers mess for 5 Bomber Command.