RAF Spadeadam Prior Lancy Site

 closed / former military, rocket launch complex

Spadeadam was opened in the late 1950s as a test area for the British Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM) code named "Blue Streak".The research program was split between Rolls Royce and Dehavilland (later Hawker Siddley). Dehavilland were responsible for the airframe and Rolls Royce for the RZ 2 rocket engines. The first rocket firing took place in August 1959, but by this time the Fixed Site Ballistic Missile (FSBM) was being phased out.

This site in the 1950s and 60s was the location of horizontal test stands for the Blue Streak IRBM rocket.The engine test area consisted of four concrete stands into which the engines could be mounted for test firing. Three remain, copied from a Rocketdyne design used at their California Santa Susana Field Laboratory site; the fourth has been demolished. This lost stand seems to have been built to a different design, using an innovative application of pre-stressed concrete to contain liquid oxygen spills. The area is now managed by GL Noble Denton, and used commercially for hazardous industrial tests.

www.subbrit.org.uk/rsg/sites/s/spadeadam/
www.gl-nobledenton.com/en/consulting/SpadeadamTestSite....