Today was an open-heath walk within the former World War 2 bombing range on Ashley Heath near the village of Godshill and 5 miles northwest of Lyndhurst The range was used by aircraft from the Aeroplane & Armament Experimental Establishment at RAF Boscombe Down, nr Salisbury. The range was used for training and testing, all types of munitions fired or dropped from British aircraft were tested here first, except live incendiaries due to the fire risk. Barnes Wallis’s prototype Bouncing bombs used in Operation Chastise by the Dambusters and the Grand Slam bomb were tested on the site. Several different types of targets were built on the range including air-to-ground attack, mock ship targets, aircraft pens, gun emplacement, bomb fragmentation areas, and what is said to have been some Submarine pens. There were two small grass airstrips, observation shelters, and towers. The site was used both in daylight and night targets were illumination targets specifically for night bombing practice.

Our walk today was the 1st in this area of the New Forest with the aim of seeing the remains of a large target. Known as target number 2.

The shape of the target is visible from the ground the concrete wall around the target was removed for construction materials in the 1970’s

Many small ponds are on the heath most are water-filled bomb craters.