Why Belton Park?
Figure 1: 6th Baron Brownlow, Peregrine Cust © National Trust & below, his appointment as a Pilot Officer in the RAF 1939 by Air Marshall Portal Air Member for Personnel on the Air Council.
The Depot was located 5 km away from Grantham Railway station on the then London and North Eastern Railway from London through to Inverness and 4 km from The Great North Road. There are 3 possible reasons why this site was chosen.
Firstly, it seems feasible that Lord Brownlow of Belton House (figure 1) the owner of the land offered its use for the Depot because of his strong associations with the RAF. Whether the Ministry of Works and Buildings requisitioned the land is unknown. The Government property registers, WORK 50/23-29, held at the National Archives have not survived for Lincolnshire. That the Ministry of Works owned the camp post-war indicates Brownlow received compensation. Land immediately to the west of the site called Harrowby Fields, remained in family ownership until 2001.
Brownlow was the President of the Lincolnshire Territorial Army and Air Force Association. In 1939 he became a Pilot Officer in the Royal Air Force Voluntary Reserve in the Administrative and Special Duties Branch (for Administrative Duties). He was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary to Lord Beaverbrook in the Ministry of Aircraft Production (14 May 1940 to 1 May 1941).
Brownlow liased with Marc Birkigt of Hispano Suiza Paris to set up munitions manufacture at the British Manufacture and Research Company in Grantham producing ammunition & guns, amongst other materials of war.
Brownlow had become a director on the Hispano Board in 1937 and helped set up the British Manufacture and Research Company (BMARC) at Grantham producing anti-aircraft cannon. Brownlow is recorded at BMARC in Grantham in February 1941 defusing an unexploded bomb! In July 1941 he was promoted to Flying Officer and later Squadron Leader. He acted as the staff officer to the Assistant Chief of the Air Force (Policy), Air Vice Marshal Slessor (Air Force Lists, National Library of Scotland). Slessor commanded No. 5 Group Bomber Command RAF at St Vincents, a Victorian mansion in Grantham from May 1941 to April 1942. Therefore, Brownlow would have been in the loop during the creation of the Regiment. He resigned his commission in March 1944, but continued as Lord Lieutenant of Lincolnshire and an involvement with the Regiment. He was a qualified pilot. Here, he is seen in 1972 talking about the Belton Mona Lisa (video).
Figure 2: Aerial views of Belton Camp looking to north east May 1918. The Londonthorpe Lane, road centre led to the Londonthorpe Stables immediate right out of view. That area became the future RAF Regiment Depot accessed by this road.
Secondly, during the Great War, the 3rd Earl Brownlow loaned Belton Park to Lord Kitchener as a training camp for the 11th Northern Division (figure 2). From October 1915 the two adjacent camps at Belton and Harrowby became the headquarters and school of the Machine Gun Corps accommodating 20,000 men. Although all surface infrastructure was removed by 1922, utilities such as water, electricity and sewage pumping stations would have remained accessible 20 years later. In particular, the Central Electricity Board (188 GRANTHAM REVIEW OF 1937 ) had supplied Grantham since 1937 with alternating current by pylons, i.e. as part of the National Grid, completed in 1938. This allowed distant power stations such as in South Wales to replace blitzed local generators. Lord Brownlow also owned the conveniently close Peascliffe 750-yard firing range, which he leased for military use (see Small Arms Training).
Figure 3: Londonthorpe Stables, the site of the WWII depot
The Depot was located over and in the vicinity of the WWI Londonthorpe Stables, the long row of white buildings arrowed in this March 1918 aerial photograph (figure 3). To the left of the Stables is the WW1 Machine Gun Corps camp. Alma Wood snakes left to right above the arrow. The foreground church is St Wulframs, Grantham (© Royal Air Force Museum Collection, click images for source). In WW1 a rail spur from the main line led to these stables. The track-bed is still partially visible within Belton Park Golf Course and could have been re-metalled if required. A further 1918 aerial view of Royal Flying Corps Station Grantham (later RAF Spitalgate) shows the Stables (red arrowed) & future Depot site from the south (© IWM)
Figure 4: Lincolnshire air fields the Belton Depot is between Spitalgate and Barkston Heath; operational WW2 airfields by 1945.
Thirdly, RAF Bomber Command had 101 operational bases across the east of England all of which required defense against attack using Bofors L40/60 guns and the same variety of infantry weapons available to the Army (figure 4).
Headquarters of Bomber Command No 5 Group was located a few kilometers from the Depot at St Vincents Hall, Grantham. Here Sir Arthur Harris, head of Bomber Command and Sir Barnes Neville Wallis, the inventor of the bouncing bomb awaited the results of the "Dam Busters" raid of 1943, aircraft for which took off from Lincolnshire. With the Royal Flying Corps based in Grantham during the Great War, Grantham had always been 'air-minded'. All the planning for air support for Operation Overlord (D-Day) was done at Grantham.