1943: The Golf Course the Luftwaffe Built – Lullingstone Park

Exploring a 113-year-old case - where a future Chairman of the Labour Party, and mentor to both JFK & Pierre Trudeau, blew up the men’s toilets at Oxted Station in Surrey, in support of the Suffragette movement. On 4th April 1913, Edwin Mighell arrived for his shift. He found the remnants of a rush basket containing a petrol can, an alarm clock, and what appeared to have been gunpowder.

 

Historical documentary about the secret World War II decoy airfield that became Lullingstone Park Golf Course in Kent — and why some of its bomb craters are still playing as course hazards today.

By 1940, the Luftwaffe was hammering RAF airfields across Kent. Someone at the Ministry of Defence had a very British idea: build fake airfields. And bomb ourselves. Lullingstone Park became part of a nationwide network of RAF decoy sites — dummy aircraft, fake hangars, and controlled lighting designed to simulate active runways at night.

The crews who operated them sat in reinforced concrete bunkers and made themselves deliberate targets, hoping the Germans would bomb them instead of Biggin Hill. On the night of 17th January 1943, they did.

Join us as we walk the site and tell you the story of the golf course the Luftwaffe built.

In this episode:

  1. What exactly were K Sites and Q Sites?
  2. The dummy Hawker Hurricanes of Lullingstone 
  3. The unglamorous heroes of Operation Starfish
  4. The night 115 tons of bombs fell on Kent
  5. Why some of the sand traps aren’t sand traps

 

—– Further Reading:

Wisniewski, K.D. et al. (2025). Multi-disciplinary site investigations of WW2 allied aerial bombing decoy sites in North Staffordshire, UK. Journal of Conflict Archaeology. DOI: 10.1080/15740773.2025.2464568

Dobinson, C. (2000). Fields of Deception: Britain’s Bombing Decoys of World War II. Methuen.

For essays and articles from APotP: https://www.apotp.net/the-house-posit…

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Secret Bonus Facts: 1. Lullingstone Country Park itself is a 460-acre site in the Darent Valley, Kent, renowned for its fusion of ancient natural landscapes and deep historical roots. The park is internationally significant for its collection of over 300 veteran trees, including oak, beech, ash, hornbeam, and sweet chestnut. Some specimens are estimated to be up to 800 years old, with one oak possibly reaching 1,000 years. 2. There is an English Heritage site within the park – Lullingstone Roman Villa. It features some of the best-preserved Roman mosaics in Britain and the remains of one of the earliest known Christian house-churches in the UK. 3. There is also a 15th-century manor house that is home to the World Garden of Plants, called Lullingstone Castle. It’s not really a castle but worth seeing in its own right. 

 

You’ve scrolled too far. There is nothing down here. But… since you’re here… The chalk grasslands are famous for spectacular orchid displays in spring and summer, including the rare lizard orchid and greater butterfly orchid. Meanwhile, a chalk stream called the River Darent flows through the park, providing habitats for kingfishers, herons, and water voles.