Regional Information
Set at the mouth of the River Deben, Bawdsey Manor was built as the private estate of Sir Cuthbert Quilter in 1886. It was enlarged in 1895, and then during World War I was requisitioned by the Devonshire Regiment.
The estate, comprising the manor house, estate buildings and 168 acres, was returned to the Quilter family after the war but then bought in its entirety by the Air Ministry in 1936. The RAF's experimental Radio Direction Finding (RDF) training school was established with the first Chain Home radar station there becoming operational from May 1937. Bawdsey remained in RAF service until 1991.