Qualla: Sywell Aviation Museum

Sywell Aviation Museum: Introduction

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chris, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Sywell Aviation Museum lives in five wartime Nissen huts set in a row beside the aerodrome's spotters' car park, their curved tin roofs the same ones that sheltered RAF and USAAF airmen across England in the 1940s. Three of the huts came down from RAF Bentwaters, which was a USAAF airfield in Suffolk; the other two were dismantled from a former POW camp at Snape Farm in Derbyshire and trucked here. They were re-erected by volunteers, kitted out with display cases and uniformed mannequins, and opened to the public in May 2001 by Alex Henshaw, the test pilot who had flown Wellingtons off this very field during the war. Entry has been free since the first day. Donations are encouraged. Visitors come for the Hawker Hunter outside the door and leave talking about a concrete dummy of a nuclear bomb in the back room.

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Image: Chris | CC BY-SA 2.0

Sywell Aviation Museum: What sits outside the door

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tom walker, CC BY 3.0. Pull up to the museum and the first thing you see is Hawker Hunter F.2 WN904, nicknamed Heidi, parked on a concrete plinth with its nose pointed at the runway. This is the only complete F.2 mark of the Hunter still in existence. The Hunter was the RAF's mainline fighter through t...

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Image: Tom walker | CC BY 3.0

Sywell Aviation Museum: Inside the first hut

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Zygologyboy at English Wikipedia, Public domain. The Paul Morgan Hall, named for a local benefactor, takes visitors through the history of Sywell itself: the aerodrome's opening in 1928, the wartime training and Wellington repair work, the Lancaster assembly line that operated here from 1942 to 1943, the Jetstream years. Childr...

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Image: Zygologyboy at English Wikipedia | Public domain

Sywell Aviation Museum: The RAF Hall and the Home Front

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Alan Wilson from Stilton, Peterborough, Cambs, UK, CC BY-SA 2.0. Step through into the RAF Hall and the focus shifts from the cockpits to the cooking pots. There is a complete RAF bomb train, the kind of low trolley that ground crews used to roll high explosive out to waiting Lancasters. There is a wartime kitchen rebuilt with the period stove...

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Image: Alan Wilson from Stilton, Peterborough, Cambs, UK | CC BY-SA 2.0

Sywell Aviation Museum: The Main Hall and the American Hall

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Cj1340 at English Wikipedia, Public domain. The Main Hall holds aviation archaeology: pieces of Vickers Wellingtons and B-17 Flying Fortresses pulled out of Northamptonshire fields where they came down. There is a section on the Zeppelin raids over the county in the First World War, and a display about local ace Major Mick...

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Image: Cj1340 at English Wikipedia | Public domain

Sywell Aviation Museum: The POW and Cold War room

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User:Gambitek, CC BY-SA 4.0. The last hut covers two themes a generation apart. One side deals with the 1942 Wellingborough Blitz, when German bombs killed civilians in the nearby town, and with the experience of RAF aircrew who became prisoners of war, including the escape and evasion materials sent into ca...

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Image: User:Gambitek | CC BY-SA 4.0