RAF Coltishall

Royal Air Force Coltishall, more commonly known as RAF Coltishall (IATA: CLF, ICAO: EGYC), is a former Royal Air Force station located 10 miles (16 km) North-North-East of Norwich, in the English county of Norfolk, East Anglia, which operated from 1938 to 2006.

It was a fighter airfield in the Second World War and afterwards a station for night fighters then ground attack aircraft until closure.

After longstanding speculation, the future of the station was sealed once the Ministry of Defence announced that the Eurofighter Typhoon, a rolling replacement aircraft, displacing the ageing SEPECAT Jaguar, would not be posted there. The last of the Jaguar squadrons left on 1 April 2006 and the station finally closed, one month early and £10 million under budget, on 30 November 2006.

The station motto was Aggressive in Defence. The station badge is a stone tower surmounted by a mailed fist grasping three bind bolts (arrows), which symbolised a position of strength in defence of the homeland, indicative of the aggressive spirit which Coltishall fighter aircraft were prepared to shoot down the enemy.

Coltishall

Coordinates: 52°43′41″N 1°21′43″E / 52.7281°N 1.36189°E / 52.7281; 1.36189

Coltishall is a village (population 1,405) on the River Bure, west of Wroxham, in the English county of Norfolk, within the Norfolk Broads.

History

Coltishall was a place of note even when the Domesday Book was compiled. For 250 years it was a centre of the malting industry. Many Norfolk wherries (trading ships) were built here.

Between 1779 and 1912, it was possible to navigate the River Bure all the way to Aylsham, but now the limit of navigation for powered craft is just south of Coltishall.

The nearby RAF Coltishall played an important role during World War II, and afterwards, but was finally closed in December 2006. The site is now home to HMP Bure.

Horstead watermill on the Coltishall-Horstead river border was one of the most photographed mills in the county until it burned down in 1963.

Notable residents