• Kent Battle of Britain Museum Trust logo
  • Sgt Sydney Ireland, 610 (County of Chester) Sqn, killed 12 July 1940.
  • Downed Do 17Z's of 8th Staffel of Kampfgeschwader 77, shot down Wednesday 3rd July 1940 following a raid on RAF Kenley.
  • Messerschmitt Me 110 downed in the English Channel.
  • F/O William Lidstone McKnight, Canadian.
Hurricanes and the Few memorial statues on the Museum grounds.
Outdoor aircraft displays and the Museum's 1937 Austin 7 Ruby.
Replica MkI and Mk 9 Spitfires with CWGC information panels for Hawkinge cemetery.

Museum Grounds

The story begins before you reach the door.

On Arrival

In the car park stands the first of the Museum’s three Pickett-Hamilton Retractable Forts. This example comes from RAF Lympne and was bought from a farmer. It was upside down, full of earth and had a tree growing through it! Two of our volunteers spent several days digging it out and cutting down the tree before it could be brought back to the Museum.

Beside it, a Queen Mary trailer carries a full-size replica Spitfire Mk IX in D-Day colours. It represents MK356, which stood at the main gates of RAF Hawkinge until the station closed in December 1961. The original MK356 was later rebuilt and flew with the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. It was lost in a tragic accident on 25 May 2024, killing its pilot, Squadron Leader Mark Long.

Next to it is a static display Spitfire Mk Ia, R6595, coded DW-O, as flown by P/O Frank K. Webster. P/O Webster was shot down and killed on 26 August 1940; his Spitfire crashed at Flegis Court Farm, a short distance from the airfield and where the Museum now stands.

By the entrance and shop are two concrete barrels used as roadblocks at RAF Lympne during the Battle of Britain.

The Spirit of the Few

The centrepiece of the Museum grounds is the Spirit of the Few Monument: seven life-size bronze figures of No. 32 Squadron pilots, recreating one of the best-known photographs of the Battle of Britain.

It was taken by the Fox Photographic Unit at RAF Hawkinge on 29 July 1940, just 100 metres west of where the Monument now stands. The pilots are, left to right: P/O Rupert Smythe, P/O John Proctor, P/O Keith Gillman, F/O Peter Brothers, P/O Peter Gardner, P/O Douglas ‘Grubby’ Grice and P/O Alan Eckford. More about the Monument.

The Aircraft

At the heart of the grounds are three full-size replica Hawker Hurricanes, the Museum’s gate guardians. They represent aircraft of No. 32 Squadron, which flew regularly from Hawkinge in July and August 1940: the machines of S/Ldr John Worrall, F/O Peter Brothers and Sgt William Higgins.

On the grass nearby are:

  • a Junkers Ju 52 (CASA 352L) transport
  • a Bristol Blenheim Mk IV (Bolingbroke)
  • a Heinkel He 111 H-16 bomber, which flew in the 1969 film Battle of Britain. Many of the film’s scenes were shot on this very airfield.

Look Out For

  • the Last of the Few Memorial to Group Captain ‘Paddy’ Hemingway
  • a four-cone mobile Sound Locator
  • a 1940-period King George VI telephone box and post box
  • Czechoslovak memorial plaques for their Battle of Britain pilots, the Czech Four Leaf Clover and P/O Tomáš Glaser
  • ‘Betsy’, the 1943 Guy Arab double-decker bus

Defending the Airfield

In the corner of the site, still in its original position, is a Type 22 pillbox, with an anti-aircraft mount on the roof and a clear view across the landing ground.

Two more Pickett-Hamilton Forts were recovered from the airfield by Museum volunteers in the mid-1990s. Both stand in front of the Operations Block, and one still has its original compressed-air ram. The designer’s own working model is on show as you enter the Lord Dowding Memorial Hangar.

Salvaged from the Airfield

Around the Armoury are pieces of the station rescued since the Museum moved here in 1980:

  • the paraffin store, fuel pumps, bowser pumps, manhole covers and vents from the refuelling area and fuel dump, about 100 yards to the west
  • circular concrete tie-downs, used to secure aircraft in high winds
  • boundary marker stones
  • foundation blocks from the Guard Room and Boiler House
  • a coping stone from the perimeter wall of the administration area

Every one of them was once part of a working fighter station.

Dig for Victory

Behind the Operations Block is a 1940 ‘Dig for Victory’ garden, complete with its own Anderson shelter. Volunteers grow the fruit and vegetables of wartime Britain. Each season’s produce is sold, and the proceeds buy next year’s seeds.

Remembering RAF Hawkinge

In front of the Operations Block stands the Hawkinge Airfield Memorial, erected by the Airfields of Britain Conservation Trust in July 2015 in the presence of four of ‘The Few’. It commemorates the airfield’s military years, 1915 to 1961.

Flying here goes back further still. The first known flight from Hawkinge was recorded on a postcard in January 1910, showing two Blériots flying over the village pond, opposite the entrance to Hawkinge Cemetery. In 1912 an aeroplane called ‘The Mayfly’ was famously built and flown from the site where the Museum now stands.

Beside the memorial is an original RAF Hawkinge lamp post, salvaged from Aerodrome Road in the early 1980s. Memorial plaques around the grounds remember the Battle of Britain and the airfield’s part in the war.

Take your time. Every structure, artefact and aircraft offers another glimpse of the people and events that shaped this airfield, and the wider story of the Battle of Britain.

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