Monument record RLM 047 - Former RAF Butley, renamed Bentwaters RAF Station in 1943

Military airfield built in 1942 and used by the RAF until 1949. The site was transferred to the United States Air Force in 1951 and used by them throughout the Cold War. In 1993 the site was closed down and returned to the ownership of the Ministry of Defence. The former command post buildings now house the Bentwaters Cold War Museum (details can be found in Wikipedia and other websites). Various buildings survive.
Some of the remaining buildings are a good number of the bomb stores used in WW2 and perhaps utilised in the Cold War, a water tower, vehicle storage facilities, a guardhouse, observation towers and the original control tower (S1).

This site is now part used as an industrial park and the rest lies unused, but fully secure. The future of the site is unknown as the owners wanted to open it as a commercial airport for East Anglia but local council objections have put paid to that idea. The runway is still used by occasional light aircraft but that is all.This comprises the main runway (1.5 miles long), hard-standing, control tower, bomb stores, protected hangers and other buildings. Full details in (S1).

A Second World War and Cold War Military airfield. RAF Bentwaters was established in 1944. In that year it was used by 11 Fighter Group as a forward airfield. In 1944 the airfield was equipped with three intersecting concrete runways, 50 grid type hard standings and two T-2 type hangars. Wartime construction methods typically involved the use of "temporary" building materials for many types of buildings. In the early 1950s it became an American Fighter-Bomber base and remained in American hands until the early 1990s. It was modernised in the 1970s, including the addition of protected hardened aircraft shelters, command post, aircraft decontamination centre, a fire station, pillboxes and fuel tender sheds. Although deserted, when visited by English Heritage in the year 2000 the base appeared to be little altered since the departure of the Americans. In 2003 it was announced that a "Bentwaters Cold War Museum" was planned for the site (S2).

November 2015. Suffolk Coast and Heaths Area of Outstanding Beauty National Mapping Programme.
The site of the Second World War and Cold War Airfield of RAF Butley/Bentwaters is visible on aerial photographs on numerous sorties of aerial photographs, for example (S3-S8). Due to the limited time available for mapping and recording – and the fact that the main components of the Cold War phases of the airfield are depicted on the modern Ordnance Survey mapping – the NMP mapping relates to the Second World War phase of the airfield – as visible in 1945. Closer examination of the post-Second World War photography and the creation of multiple individual phased plans would allow for recording of the various phases of Cold War activity at the site when it became the American Fighter-Bomber base, such as the bomb store and missile silos complexes and Hardened-Aircraft Shelters.
Only the extent of the main Second World War runways, dispersals and hangars and larger structures has been mapped individually. Concentrations of smaller structures and huts have been recorded as ‘extent of area’ polygons. Some individual Second World War structures and defences were mapped however at TM 3412 5271 and TM 3613 5347. Additional information regarding the site can be sought from military site plans and records, in association with the aerial photographs and heritage protection and site conservation reports, for example (S9).

See RLM 069 for the associated military camp and accommodation within the former Rendlesham Park grounds.
S. Horlock (Norfolk Historic Environment Service), 4th November 2015.