Everybody loves a mystery location...

And this one promises to be an interesting one!

This image is hidden for guests.
Please log in or register to see it.

I have sketchy information - it's got to be between '57 and '63 as this is when the person sitting on the 'plane (Vickers Venom?) was doing his National Service.

The background is intriguing as it seems to show an old house with derelict greenhouses and garden gone to seed. Are the CI hoops some type of hutting or the basis for a shelter? Or just pig arks!?

de Havilland Venom ! It looks to be more of a museum or early aircraft preservation society surroundings rather than an airfield ?

David wrote:

de Havilland Venom !

Yes that makes more sense... shows my knowledge of planes!
Technically it could still have been in service up to '62 then?

As you say it doesn't look much like an airfield at all.

The structure in the left background does not look like a house but a shed or even a hangar. Also the brick wall is externally buttressed to support loading from the blind side just like a 25 yard range butt wall. The sheds could be Nissen but the apparent scale is wrong even allowing that the subjects are located on higher ground.

Greenhouses, cold frames, raised beds and big wall... looks like a walled kitchen garden at a "big house" to me.

PETERTHEEATER;122129 wrote:

The structure in the left background does not look like a house but a shed or even a hangar. Also the brick wall is externally buttressed to support loading from the blind side just like a 25 yard range butt wall. The sheds could be Nissen but the apparent scale is wrong even allowing that the subjects are located on higher ground.

I'm not aware of any hangars that had an attached greenhouse, and although the buttressed part does indeed remind me of a shooting-in butt, it appears to have a sliding sash window installed in one end!

P wrote:

Greenhouses, cold frames, raised beds and big wall... looks like a walled kitchen garden at a "big house" to me.

That was my interpretation too, and in the '50s and 60's there were plenty of them in a semi-derelict too. However the incongruous nature of the aeroplane cannot be avoided...

The aircraft is most certainly within the walls of a Georgian or Victorian kitchen garden. Many airfields were of course built on country estates. Near me, Chipping Ongar (Forest Hall), Great Dunmow (Easton Lodge), Erals Colne (Marks Hall).

My first guess was that it is a Meteor. Anyway, perhaps a CCF or ATC connection? Maybe a posh school?

Ahhh... they're ganging up on me!

OK; so the curved structures are cloches behind which appears to be the frame of a small greenhouse and the large structure in the background must be a large greenhouse with glazed roof and half walls.

I'm undecided on whether it's a Vampire or Venon; the canopy frame to windscreen arch angle looks wrong. That is pertinent to assist in locating the site by way of records.