Building record MHG56105 - Bellman Hangars - A Camp Technical Area, Evanton Airfield, Alness

Four Bellman hangars were noted by ARCH's Evanton Wartime Remains project in 2013. Two Bellman hangars in the A camp at the Deephaven entrance (NH 62072 66679 & NH 62095 66645) were demolished in 2011. Roddie Lovett remembered that during the war they held Barracuda’s. Just after WWII the military held on to hangars and stored aircraft engines in them. After that they were used for a number of purposes. Novar Estate had, for a short time, a grain drier in the hangar first on the right as you go down Newton Road South. It was also rented out to a firm in Inverness for grain storage. The other hangar was used as a silage clamp in the late 1950s. Alasdair Cameron remembered they housed cattle after the war. The doors had been taken off and turned on side, and cows looked over. On the 1946 RAF plan, Bldg No 158 and Bldg No 159 were both described simply as “Aircraft Shed”, “Steel Building & Corrugated Iron”. An American visitor to the area recalled that the hangars were used when the Americans used the camp for spy balloons in 1955. Contributors:Alasdair Cameron; Alan Kinghorn, Eddie Szymborski, Alpin MacDonald, Roddie Lovett, Phil Glover.
A further two Bellman Hangars survived at the Deephaven entrance (NH 62277 66765, NH 62253 66800). One was smaller, because after the war it went on fire in the 1970s. Novar Estate had a sawmill there before the fire. The larger was used as a dairy, run by Novar Estate after the war. There was also a slurry tank in the same area. The buildings were later a Gardiner’s Timber Supplies in the 1980s and woodland fencing suppliers. One was also used by Willie Munro’s recycling building (later relocated to B camp). Alan Kinghorn remembered visiting one of the hangars collecting gas valve assemblies (pigs) that had been fabricated by BOC (British Oxygen Company) in the hangar in the mid to late 1970s. <1>