Ickworth Belt ?

I've just spotted a note I made years ago from AIR 14/1818

Ickworth Belt has a very large runway. Some time later I decided this was Wittering (don't know why). Now I'm unconvinced.

There is an Ickworth between Chedburgh and Bury St Edmunds airfields, but I don't think they qualify.

Googling the term produced only one result - a pdf with: 4630. S90. Mayo-Wells, W.J. Calibration and trial flights for Ickworth Belt RDF station. . June 1943. PRO AIR 14/1447.

Any ideas

There is an Ixworth near Honnington

Had another though on this and the word Icknield sprang to mind. Could Ickworth be a typo? The Icknield Way is an ancient trackway which which goes from Norfolk to Wiltshire.

So I googled Icknield Way. One of the first hits was Newmarket which is on the Icknield Way. In 1942 Newmarket airfield had a grass E/W runway of 3,000 yards which fits.
The TNA source document was AIR 14/1818, 1941-43 - Blind landing and approach. Newmarket was used in March 1944 for testing the prototype for Bomber Command's Lucero beam landing system.

The Ickworth Belt did not seem to exist, but the ‘Icknield Belt’ does and is described as a corridor which follows the chalk escarpment of the Chiltern Hills, and Aylesbury crops up frequently and I can't think of a mid-1943 airfield in that area with a 'very large runway',

So possibly a bit closer to the truth, but not much.

Ickworth Belt is at. TM2944647243. It is not named on the 1947 2 1/4 inch sheets but on the 1957-58 OS sheet it is named. www.old-maps.co.uk/#/Map/626500/249500/10/101324. Hopefully the link works!,

Just read the AR Woodbridge article and thought long runway

netcompsys wrote:

Isnt Icknield Belt called Icknield Way ?

Evidently it is just a portion of it :

..., because we are between the Lower and Upper Icknield Way, in what is known as the Icknield Belt.

... This zone is called the Icknield Belt and it has much lighter, loamy soils formed from greensands (than the rest)

Sorry forgot to recenter the page, this should be better. www.old-maps.co.uk/#/Map/628830/247810/10/101324. And it also appear on the 1955 2 1/4 sheet. maps.nls.uk/view/94815704

kebecker wrote:

Ickworth Belt is at. TM2944647243. It is not named on the 1947 2 1/4 inch sheets but on the 1957-58 OS sheet it is named. www.old-maps.co.uk/#/Map/626500/249500/10/101324. Hopefully the link works!,

Just read the AR Woodbridge article and thought long runway

Sooner or later I will get the GR correct as well. Its been a long day!

TM2873947872

Peter wrote:

Regarding the longest runways, I quote from an article I wrote for AR a few years back on Britains longest runway.

"In 1942 RAF Wittering is listed as having three grass runways, N - S 980yds, NE – SW 1,900yds and E - W 4,800yds. Why was the E – W runway so long?
At that time the only other contender for longest runway was Newmarket Heath in Suffolk which was 3,000yds, and also had a grass surface."

Could Wittering be the "very long runway" and was my article the reason for your suspicion about Wittering?

The present Wittering is an amalgamation of 3 airfields, Wittering to the east, Collyweston to the west and another whose name I can't remember thus forming the so called '5 mile' runway which was actually less than 5 km.
Didn't Boscombe Down have a 3,000yd runway available by 1942? I know the 3 emergency runways (Manston, Woodbridge, Carnaby) had 3,000yd runways but they came later.