Woodhall Spa Airfield Memorial Garden

Woodhall Spa Airfield Memorial Garden

£0 of £4,000 goal
94 days remaining

Help us to raise £4000 for a new memorial garden at Woodhall Spa Airfield nature reserve.

 

RAF Woodhall, and the Lancaster and Mosquito Squadrons based here, played a critical role in the defence of this country in the Second World War, the missions that left this airfield in the heart of rural Lincolnshire pushing the airmen and technology of the time to new limits. Many of the young crewmen never returned. Now a place that reverberated to the roar of the Lancaster Bombers' engines is quietly returning to nature. Egrets enjoy the open water, common lizards bask on the disused runway, livestock used for conservation grazing move across the grassland, and Red Listed skylark and cuckoo bring their own distinctive sounds.  

Situated near the entrance of the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust nature reserve, the memorial garden will be a place of peace and reflection for everyone, but especially for some of our older or less able visitors, and veterans in particular, who find the walk to the existing war memorial too far. Having a memorial garden close to the car park will give these visitors an opportunity to reflect, lay wreaths and enjoy the nature reserve without the long walk.

The Poem, adopted by the 617 Squadron (the Dambusters), as well as memorials to Wing Commander John Bell VC and Wing Commander Guy Gibson VC, will form the heart of the garden. A specially commissioned artwork will commemorate the RAF at Woodhall during that time.

The memorial garden will provide a view down the main runway to the existing war memorial, and further to the distant tree lines of Ostlers Plantation and Kirkby Moor nature reserve - a view unchanged since the first Lancasters used these long and wide runways and the huge skies overhead were scanned for returning wartime aircraft.

Woodhall Spa Airfield is a nature reserve where wildlife and wartime history quietly exist together. The memorial garden will allow everyone to discover and enjoy this.

Woodhall Spa Airfield is a magical, peaceful place. I could not believe how lovely and meaningful the reserve was when I first walked down the old runway.
Phil
volunteer

We cannot think of more fitting way to remember the contribution of the men and women who were based at Woodhall Spa and flew from the airfield.

Please be aware that if the money raised by this appeal exceeds the total required to create the memorial garden, the additional funds will go towards the work of the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust to protect and restore wildlife and habitats in the county and manage nature reserves including Woodhall Spa Airfield.

Thank you for your support

Furrows into Silence

The Lancs have left; from Fenland skies
The clamour and the fret has gone.
Their crews and those who watched with anxious eyes
For homing kites are long departed.
Through roofless huts and fissured tarmac grow
The thrusting weeds
And there is little left to show
What once was here.
Nor should we grieve, or yearn
For what is past.
This place, designed for war, has served its turn
Let Nature now take back its own.
The ravages of age and time can not decay
The greater work.
These artefacts of steel and concrete pass away;
The deeds remain.

Philip A. Nicholson