York Historic Environment Record

Several structures associated with the former RAF Clifton airfield, on Clifton Moor, York, were subject to archaeological recording in late November/early December 2019, prior to their proposed demolition as part of planned junction and other highway works associated with the York Northern Outer Ring Road improvement scheme. The structures recorded by the survey, namely sections of the runways and perimeter taxi-ways, a bulk petrol installation, a machine gun range and cannon ‘shooting-in’ butts, are associated with an expansion of the RAF airfield in late 1942. The runways and taxi-ways are of sectional concrete construction covered with asphalt, and both preserve parts of a Drem Mk II lighting system, as well as contemporary drainage. The cannon butts incorporate six bays into which machine guns mounted in fighter airplanes would have been fired, having been secured to an area of hardstanding accessed from the airfield perimeter taxi-way. The butts at the machine gun range is a more substantial feature, although little now remains of the actual firing shed - the range would have been used by RAF personnel to maintain their ground defence training. Both sets of butts are relatively well-preserved, and are similar to examples surviving or noted elsewhere at other former RAF airfields.