Dowding’s First Day at Fighter Command

June 14^th 1936

“As was customary for the man nicknamed “Stuffy”, Air Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding arrived early for his first day as commander-in-chief of Bentley Priory. It was 9am sharp on June 14 1936, and he surprised the smattering of crew already posted to the 18th-century former stately home that had been converted into an RAF base. Most of his staff hadn’t yet arrived.

After a brisk stroll through the priory – designed by architect Sir John Soane, and a magnet for the cream of society before being purchased by the Air Ministry in 1926 – Dowding wandered into the south-facing library. Its tall windows led to a tiled balcony adorned with wrought-iron railings bearing the crest of the previous owner, the Marquess of Abercorn. From here the view stretched past the lawns and fountains of the Stanmore estate’s sculpted Italianate gardens, over the tops of the distant redwood trees and across London’s northern suburbs.

 “There is nothing but the curve of the earth between here and Berlin,” declared Stuffy, known as such because of his Edwardian manners and refusal to drink alcohol. “This will be my office.”

Four years later, amid the din of screaming air sirens, he would stand here, eyes raw with tiredness, watching the Battle of Britain unfold in the skies above. The headquarters of RAF Fighter Command, Bentley Priory was the nerve centre of operations during the battle for national survival that raged in the air between July and October 1940.”

Description taken from text on Bentley Priory website.

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