THE TOWER AT WAR

By the beginning of the 20th century times were changing: the small group of wealthy Bohemians, eccentrics and thinkers, who had lived, worked or entertained themselves at the Tower, had vanished. In the face of the two World Wars, and their aftermath, the Tower and its location were to play a minor but essential part in the security of the nation.

A Lancaster bomber marking the anniversary of the Whitley crash.

Compared with the extraordinary activity of the previous century, by the early 20th century the Tower had taken on a surprisingly humdrum role as a farmhouse. A succession of tenant farmers worked the surrounding land, which became known as Tower Farm. The Hollingtons, a couple who arrived at the beginning of the 1930s, lived at Tower Farm until 1972. When the Second World War came, a Royal Observer Corps post was set up close to the Tower, and Mr. Hollington was one of the two members of the Corps (together with Albert Lowe) who tried, unsuccessfully, to save the airmen whose plane crashed on Beacon Hill.

The story of the crash is recorded in some detail. On the 2nd June 1943 the five-man British and Canadian crew of an Armstrong Whitworth Whitley bomber, Z6639, was completing an exercise of about three hour’s duration. They had returned to the Honeybourne circuit, only to find the weather had deteriorated, with rain and very low cloud base. Due to other aircraft landing, Z6639 was given a ‘red’ signal by the airfield controller, in order to circle again. On the second circuit, during the climb-out to turn, the bomber crashed into the hill near the Tower. In June 1998, a special commemorative event, marking the 55th anniversary of the crash, took place at Broadway Tower. An annual remembrance is held every year at the exact time of the tragedy.

The Royal Observer Post was actually not at the Tower itself but a little way to the north, in the adjoining field. Here still stands one of the few remaining “Orlit A” concrete surrounds, sheltering the observer whilst tracking enemy aircraft. Broadway was in fact the ‘master post’ of the area, gathering information and reporting to Oxford.

In the late 1950s, Broadway Tower monitored nuclear fallout in England; and an underground Royal Observer Corps bunker was built 50 yards (46 m) from the Tower. Manned continuously from 1961, the bunker remained under the Official Secrets Act until it was de-commissioned in 1991. It was one of the last Cold War bunkers constructed, and is now one of the few remaining fully equipped facilities in England – and as such is part of our social and military history.