While I took these photos on a more clement day, the weather on that first occasion was grey and drizzly and the structure loomed out of the mistiness - unsettling, disturbing and ugly.
It is, I discovered, an RAF installation - RAF Fylingdales. From their website...
Welcome to Royal Air Force Fylingdales. Our mission is “to provide an uninterrupted ballistic missile warning and space surveillance service”. Our tasking from the Ministry of Defence, through Headquarters Air Command, splits into four jobs. Firstly we are charged with continuously providing warning of ballistic missile events to both Her Majesty’s Government (through the UK Missile Warning Centre at RAF High Wycombe) and the United States’ authorities (through the Missile and Space Domain, which is situated in the Cheyenne Mountains in Colorado). Secondly, the Station’s complementary mission is to support – on a non-interference basis with the warning mission – the United States’ developing Missile Defense System. The Station’s third job – and secondary mission – is to contribute to the Allied Space Surveillance Network, and this enables, fourthly, the Station to support UK forces worldwide through the Satellite Warning Service.
I was unprepared for the degree of RAF presence/activity in Yorkshire - which has caused me to think about our comparatively fortunate status in New Zealand where the need and desire for such systems is largely absent.
From the same vantage point I could also look down on the high moor village of Goathland, location for the filming of the TV series Heartbeat! What a strange juxtaposition.
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