In blistering heat echoing the Battle of Britain summer of 1940, a unique piece of Norfolk heritage has been unveiled.
An enclosure of concrete-filled sandbags with a small brick shed nearby may not have the 'Wow!' impact of the county's historic stately homes.
But the restored wartime walls proudly revealed at former RAF Coltishall yesterday played their part in defeating Nazi Germany and keeping Britain free.
And, in salute to their importance, a lone Typhoon from RAF Coningsby roared over the site as VIPs gathered to admire the spectacle.
The walls formed a fighter pen where Spitfires taxied after landing, were repaired, re-armed, maintained and re-fuelled, and from where the planes and their crews headed off on the next sortie.
David Gurney, Norfolk County Council's historic environment manager, is unsure of the role of the shed – it was possibly used to store the trolley accumulators used to start Spitfires – but said it was a unique national survival.
The pen, among 12 once dotted across the airfield, had disappeared under nettles, brambles and ivy when the council bought the site in 2013, renaming it Scottow Enterprise Park.
But, with the help of a £14,000 Armed Forces Covenant grant and willing volunteers from the Spirit of Coltishall Association (SoCA), the pen has been rescued from the undergrowth and it and the shed are now part of a Scheduled Monument within a Conservation Area at Risk.
SoCA historian Neil 'Foz' Foster, who served at RAF Coltishall for 15 years, said the group was delighted with the finished project.
He added: 'It matters that we preserve a little bit of Battle of Britain history and it's particularly important that we pass it on to future generations.'
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