Was this a wireless station? Crugmeer, Cornwall

Welcome its_James,

CornwallPhil has not logged in for three months. ARPCDHG was here just before you posted.

I will send them both a Private Message (PM) alerting them to your post, asking them to return and help. A reply depends on the email address given when registering is still valid and they are motivated to help.

PM explanation

If you hover over the name of the member in their avatar it will show a new text box and within is the date of their last logged visit. Some members "flag" their interest in a thread, which means they get a system alert. Once you have posted five times - a measure to stop spam - you can send a private message (PM) to members using 'Start a private conversation' accessed via your avatar. Such messages depend on their email given at registration is still valid. You can receive and reply to a PM already.

 

Thanks for your post. Hope you enjoyed your holiday in Cornwall.
During the invasion scare of 1940 the area fell under the remit of 2nd Lt Dare Wilson ( later of SAS fame) from 8 Royal Northumberland Fusiliers who was tasked with the landward defence of Padstow. His men built numerous defence positions to prevent a landing on the nearby beaches & movement into Padstow in the rear. There are numerous oddities in surviving hedges as a result.
Up near Stepper Point is the base of one of the bombing range quadrant shelters, and the air raid shelter for the Coastguard look out still remains.
Some of the traces of concrete near the coast path between Stepper Pt & Trevose Head are connected to the bombing range - remnants of arrow markers etc.
Going back to the Crugmeer site, there is no evidence it was ever used as an airfield in WW2. The point my research has reached is that it was a wireless post for the Royal Navy - there are mast posts near the huts. They had a similar one down near Land's End. Their job was to relay signal traffic to ships from shore and vice versa. Thus they would have been under the command of the SW Approaches Naval Command Post at Mount Batten in Plymouth ( not to be confused with RAF Mount Batten that flew seaplanes!). I have yet to discover any WW2 documentation focused on Crugmeer so I can't give a date for its construction/establishment.
Hope that helps.
If anyone is interested in the 1940 defences check out my You Tube video on the Bodmin Stop Line series that deals with Padstow & the Camel Estuary.

 

Hello, and Thanks Davidbfpo and CornwallPhil,

It was perhaps the most dreary weeks I've had in my 41 years going to Cornwall, considering the record long stint of dry and sunshine, I get my annual holiday in the rain. Hey ho, nice to be away all the same, and I got to explore many new WW2 places, last year I was unaware of fascinating world of fortifications.

Stepper point, do you have any further information relating to the quadrant shelter? It is not listed on my sources, though there is a runway for an air sea rescue headquarters in Hawkers Cove. Regards the air raid shelter, I have a Pillbox with outer blast wall listed as being beside the old coast guard lookout, but no shelter, so again, if you have any more details or coordinates I'll log it.

I'll relay what I have found regards crugmeer, and post it up here for you, though the place is like a fairytale.

I watched your crugmeer video, and then playlisted the other content.

 

Stepper Point - what you describe as a pillbox is the air raid shelter. It has no embrasures for a pillbox. You don't site a pillbox at the top of a 200 ft cliff!

Take a look at this for more detail


I have never seen any evidence for a runway at Hawker's Cove. The ASR unit operated fast motor launches moored next to the old lifeboat station. Some photos in the above video.

With ASR aircraft based at the 3 nearby airfields I don't see the need for a runway at Hawkers Cove when RNAS St Merryn, RAF St Eval & RAF St Mawgan could provide all that was needed.

 

Thanks, will have a watch when I can, here's some screen shots from the Cornwall HER map.
It strikes me as unlikely to have a runway there too but then they had the airfield at Crugmeer and that was a terrible place for an airfield, I'm going solely on the marked Runway Approach light, which perhaps that related to the Crugmeer Airfield, not this exact location.

With regard to the Coastal lookout pillbox, please see this link Heritage Gateway - Results , aswell as the attached screen shot. I found your quadrant shelter, though it seems to just be reduced to a concrete tile looking at google photos of the day mark.

 

Unfortunately the Cornwall Historic Environment Record is not always a trustworthy source when it comes to WW2 remains in Cornwall. They worked solely from a desktop survey (ie looking at maps & aerial photos) and did not visit the sites. I have called out a number of their mistakes but they are reluctant to change them. For example, they said the Par Sands Open Air Theatre was a WW2 earthwork even after I sent them photos of it from the 1930s. They refused to accept an additional pillbox at Porthtowan even after I sent them photos of it. They say a pillbox on the Hall Walk near Polruan has been demolished. It hasnt. The tree cover now shields it from the air so they cant see it sat at their desk looking at Google Earth. I could go on but I've made my point. With Stepper Point the coastguard who ran the lookout since 1920s say it was a shelter for their staff. You can read their sign on the structure!

Yes the quadrant shelter from the bombing range is reduced to ground level. It's only the concrete base that remains.

 

That's a great shame, it really is, you would think these sources only dealt in facts. It begs the question then, that since absolutely no information can be found about this place, can we even say its a WW2 structure at all, some open maps sources list it as a WW2 Naval Wireless station, but as you've pointed out, simply because it says so on a map, doesn't make it so, and there's not a scrap of information that officially ties it to anything at all Theres nothing to argue against it being a Post office, or general store. In your video, the large doors at the rear survive, what would a wireless station need with such large doors?

Try as I might, the only things to be found are people mistaking the structures for the WW1 airfield, because the plaque causes this confusing, and on occasion, others stating it as either a Chain home, which is virtually impossible given that Trevose, was a Chain Home, and is about 3 Miles away as the crow flies. Its also been mentioned as a GCI, but there's no position for a massive radar, and I think with the winds, that'd have been disastrous.

One piece I did turn up, which was hugely deflating after hours of searching for pings relating to crugmeer, in a document entitled First World War Wireless Stations in England, published by Oxford Archaeology, so you know its the good stuff. Well, to call back to your desktop survey, there's this entry,

79
TREVOSE, PADSTOW (CORNWALL)
Not identified (SW 85088 76548)
A1.305.15.226.164
World War 2 Talk website
http://ww2talk.com/forums/topic/36879-was-this-a-wireless-station-crugmeer-cornwall/

The publication came out in 2014, so 2 years after this thread started, they've searched, had a ping because you mentioned Trevose head, which really said nothing more than Trevose head being a couple of miles from Crugmeer, and they've then attached this very thread to their research, despite having absolutely nothing to do with Trevose. It does make me wonder, since Trevose and Trevone can be easily mistaken, that their search was infact for a wireless station near Trevone, which would work with the one at Crugmeer, they then read about Trevose, and assumed a mistake, what with not having local knowledge of the two nearby names places. The listing states it couldnt be found, but the CH at Trevose is anything but secret, a google search reveals plenty, and of course it had to include a video you did on it 15 years ago.

At this point I'm beginning to question whether its worth continuing my efforts as you've evidently been here doing all this long before me, with more or better resources. It doesn't seem far fetched that when your posts are all over a decade ago, that most information found out there now, probably originates back to you in some shape or form.

 

The history of the WW1 air base is well documented & photographed. Some of Malcolm McCarthy's books on Padstow contain a number of photos.

The WW2 building is on the other side of the lane and obviously doesnt appear in any of the Great War photos.

Sadly databases like the HER are only as good as the information put in and the vast majority of WW2 entries (certainly in Cornwall) are ok. However, there are a significant number that are not, perhaps having been entered by non WW2 specialists working merely from their desktop surveys. What saddens me is their reluctance to update their precious record in the light of detailed evidence, superior understanding etc.

Information on the internet often leads you round in circles to the same few, sometimes mistaken sources. This is also being confounded by AI. Few people these days are willing to put in the time & effort to seek out & interrogate the sources and draw valid historical conclusions. The skills of the historian are needed all the more as the past is being dumbed down to social media posts & click bait television.

Thus I would encourage you not to despair but to press on and break through the barriers you describe. It will be time consuming and at times hard going but the results are worth it. I have found sources pop up in the most unusual of places. For eg I struggled to find any sources on a south coast Chain Home Low radar station when going through a fort record book on a coastal gun battery I found all sorts of info on the radar station they had done some calibration work with.
So keep going!

 

No further progress to really report, though I have some loose ties. I need to post this message so I can PM you about the lost daymer bay pillbox

 

A few years ago I went to the Cornwall County Archives and frankly was pretty disappointed. They didn't seem to have much interest of enthusiasm and the materials on WWII was pretty limited. So it doesn't surprise me that the HER is not maintained/updated.