Arborfield
Local History Society

 Properties - Remains of WWII Decoy Site

The WWII ‘Starfish’ site in the grounds of Arborfield Hall Farm was de-commissioned after November 1944 and returned to agriculture. The University of Reading bought the farm, and it became part of the National Institute for Research in Dairying (N.I.R.D.).

Today, the eastern half of the decoy site is now occupied by the Bernard Weitz Centre, which is a complex of milking parlours and offices. Towards the northern edge are the slurry, methane storage tanks and areas of hard-standing. 

On the western edge, the remains of the decoy site are totally obliterated by meadows aligned south-north as opposed to west-east as shown on the 1944 aerial photograph, as shown in the first photograph, looking northwards to the copse.

The second photo taken from the north-east corner shows the few physical remains in the form of lumps of concrete, seen in the foreground. In the distance are the slurry tanks of the Bernard Weitz Centre.

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Back to the Hall during WWII

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