Forgotten RAF Base in the Woods - RAF Clifton

The Technical site of RAF Clifton has laid abandoned since the end of the Second world War. The databases we use to check the condition of military buildings has not been updated since the 1960's. We venture into the woods to see what remains and we were amazed!
This is York, England. A busy city with a well-used ring road that sees traffic all year round. The York outer ring road dualling scheme with planning permission submitted by City of York Council will see most of the remaining parts of Royal Air Force Clifton removed.
The Clifton Airfield was originally built in 1936 as a civilian venture, until the outbreak of war in September 1939 where it was taken over by the Royal Air Force.
Accommodation for 500 personnel and three large concrete runways suitable for heavy bombers were built enabling the Handley Page Halifax to operate here from 1941.
A Luftwaffe airstrike in 1942 badly damaged the airfield in 1942 which will be covered further in another video.
The purpose of this video is to show you what remains are under threat due to the road widening works due imminently, where some or all the remains North of the York Ring Road will be removed.
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Previous Firing Range Video; • British Forces Oerliko...
RAF Clifton Runways explore; • York's Forgotten World...
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Thank You for Watching :)

[@jeffdayman8183]

Great to see this airfield! Enjoyed the video. Cheers!

[@ALWResearchTeam]

Glad you enjoyed it :)

[@davidmarshakk38]

A very interesting place would love to explore it my self excellent video guys thanks for sharing

[@ALWResearchTeam]

Glad you enjoyed it and it’s open land so go for it :)

[@daviddavies2072]

Good video thank you for this, very interesting 👍🇬🇧😊

[@ALWResearchTeam]

Thanks very much:)

[@bouncermassive45]

This was our playground growing up in York it's sad now to see there is so little to see now!! We were forever in all the air raid shelters over the other side heading towards Skelton Village there still a few shelters in the woods with a few underground shelters and the old Firing ranges!!

[@ALWResearchTeam]

Hi there, we will be back filming in york at some point :)

[@barbhenderson4867]

Very interesting Andy x

[@ALWResearchTeam]

Glad you enjoyed it Barbara

[@markatoole4627]

Hello how is Dave not been on for a long time good video ones again

[@ALWResearchTeam]

Hello there. Dave is all good thanks

[@emilierodgers4511]

Aww man...right behind where I live, I would've joined you if I'd known! Did you FEEL anything in those foundations in the woods? I always feel like I'm stepping into another world, it seems to go quiet and so calm whenever I go in there.

[@ALWResearchTeam]

Hello there. It was peaceful. RAF bases have a calm but professional feel to them.

[@anthonydefreitas6006]

Excellent content as usual Andy 👍. Did you do a brief video on this site about a year ago ?

[@ALWResearchTeam]

Hello Anthony. I did a community post on a building there and a video on the remaining parts of the runways kzbin.info/www/bejne/iIe3ZnqcnZx3oaMsi=xmjC1Aokys433gIW It was always an intention to document the tech site. There will be a further video on the guardroom and other interesting areas worthy of note :)

[@anthonydefreitas6006]

@@ALWResearchTeam Cool the extra info is welcome

[@WILD35]

Ooh interesting place to look at 🤔

[@ALWResearchTeam]

Sure is. Thanks very much

[@kurwayork]

If you go onto the backies behind kingsway north, there's a lot more broken shelters, one other thing, the concrete blocks with grooves in were bike racks, there's others one the site

[@Mirrorstar]

That row of blocks. They look like bicycle parking blocks for the front wheel. Especially with the angle. We had the same arrangement at Hull Grammar on Bricknall ave.

[@ALWResearchTeam]

Interesting. I wonder if the crew had bicycles

[@philstothard8333]

@@ALWResearchTeam Bikes have always been a common way to get around airfields for all ranks , many people had allocated air force bikes ,

[@signal98]

❤

[@bouncermassive45]

Unfortunately a lot of the shelters were destroyed by the farmers to stop us kids from climbing in them also the council destroyed a lot of shelters again to stop the youths going in them. I wish you did a bit on the Halifax Bomber that crashed into the church St Joseph's Catholic church in Clifton while trying to land on the Airfield it was a sad story as many Halifax's missed the Airfield there was also 1 they dug up in a village called New Earswick just at the side of the runways if you know where to look there's still little bits left

[@ALWResearchTeam]

Hello there, we have filmed at Joseph’s church and Dorothy Thompsons house. It’ll be out on the channel members area soon :)

[@bouncermassive45]

I've just seen the video you did on the firing range on the outer ring road we used to find a lot of bullet casings on that firing range also I tried telling you of other bunkers that should be still up around where the Firing range was there's a little wood behind the back wall of the the range tat had a air raid shelter in it also a deep bunker as the wood had something to do with the outer part of the air field just somewhere else we played in when we were kids the farm was called Clifton gate farm and just behind the farm is the little wood it also had nisson huts around there I would like to think there still there but it was 1970's we played around there

[@tinagail-thompson5882]

trees are probably blackthorn (sloes) or hawthorn 😊

[@ALWResearchTeam]

Hi therem thanks for the info. They're especially prickly!