Heritage Assets: Uxbridge and South Ruislip

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 16th January 2024 Westminster Hall

[Steve Tuckwell (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the protection of heritage assets in Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituency.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship in this—my first Westminster Hall debate.

“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”—[Official Report, 20 August 1940; Vol. 364, c. 1167.]

As I am sure colleagues will know, those words were immortalised by Sir Winston Churchill, as Prime Minister, on 20 August 1940 in the House of Commons Chamber, only a few steps away from this very room. The speech containing those famous words came at a time when Nazi invasion was long suspected and indeed feared. Adolf Hitler knew that if an invasion of the British Isles were to be successful, the German Luftwaffe would have to establish superiority over our skies. This was inconceivable, but by the end of June 1940—only a couple of months before Churchill gave his speech—the Luftwaffe’s superiority in terms of planes seemed insurmountable, with a count of 2,550 planes to the RAF’s 750.

Let us fast forward a couple of months. With war now raging over the skies of Britain, the sound of a Spitfire or Hurricane drawn into a dogfight against its Nazi foe echoed all around. The airfields of southern England faced the full force of the Third Reich, and what’s more, by 16 August the resources of Fighter Command in this part of the country had almost been completely spent. In Churchill’s speech, he remarked on and paid tribute to the enormous bravery and sacrifice of Fighter Command and the wider Royal Air Force. Sir Gary, I hope you will forgive my short history lesson; I know how famous those words are, how they epitomised that point in the war, and everything they represented.

What many people do not know, however, is that that day in the Commons Chamber was not, in fact, the first time that Churchill spoke those words. Indeed, the first time he quipped, “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few” was four days earlier in my constituency of Uxbridge and South Ruislip. On 16 August 1940, Churchill, along with Major General Hastings Ismay, visited the then RAF Uxbridge, including what we today call the Battle of Britain Bunker. The trip was especially eye-opening for the then Prime Minister, as it was from that bunker that No. 11 Fighter Command operated.

Of the four Fighter Command groups, No. 11 saw the most action during the battle of Britain, shooting down many of the 1,700 enemy aircraft lost during the war. The sheer scale of No. 11’s work was evident when, on Churchill’s visit, each squadron in the group was actively engaged in combat, right at that moment, against the continuous Luftwaffe raids pouring from over the channel. When leaving the bunker, Churchill said to Ismay,

“Don’t speak to me; I have never been so moved.”

A couple of moments later, while still reflecting on what he witnessed, he turned and uttered those famous words. No. 11 Fighter Command’s continuous defence on that day was not a one-off either. Churchill would go on to write in his memoirs

“all the bulbs glowed red”

in reference to the tracking boards in the bunker’s operation room, which showed each group’s squadron engaged on 15 September that year as well.

It was not just as the stage from which Churchill uttered his famed words, or as the home of No. 11 Group’s operations, that the bunker underlined its important part in the history of Uxbridge and South Ruislip and of the entire country. I am incredibly proud of the part that the bunker played in our national history, and of the immensely courageous and brave men and women based there during the most momentous moment in Britain’s history. I am also proud that the bunker not only exists, but is one of the most popular places to visit in my constituency. I hope to be able to welcome the Minister there soon.

The bunker shows what can happen when local interest groups, alongside the wider community—those keen to preserve important parts of our history—are given institutional support. After the war, No. 11 Group relocated elsewhere, with Dowding unveiling a memorial close to the bunker entrance noting the role it played during the second world war. Thirty years after the war, and through painstaking work, the operations room of the Battle of Britain Bunker was recreated in that very room, through the tireless work of those committed to the building and its history, and those associated with it. A couple of years on, a museum was opened in the bunker, with the operations room open to visits.

When I was growing up, the bunker was an incredibly interesting place for me to visit and to learn more about my local area’s ties with the wider war effort and the role it played protecting Britain in some of her darkest days. Much of the work, however, was done off the back of volunteers and special interest groups, which is why in 2015 the whole community was thrilled when the Government pledged £1 million to fully restore the bunker, and even more people were able to visit through a specially built visitor centre. Alongside that pledge was a multi-million pound grant from Hillingdon Council to celebrate and build the visitor centre. Along with its incredible popularity, the bunker demonstrates what can happen when local heritage projects and assets have institutional support, whether from local or national Government or established charities and organisations.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I remind the hon. Gentleman, as I think he probably already knows, that the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland has some of the richest heritage around. We in Northern Ireland have some of that, including at the Conlig mines, where the first world war and second world war soldiers trained. The hon. Gentleman mentioned funding. It is incredibly important that the seed funding and help for councils to develop our heritage is made available. Does he agree that when it comes to the Minister’s input, which we very much welcome, the opportunity to have projects in my constituency of Strangford should also be supported?