RAE Farnborough... also holds a soft spot in my own aviation history.
One of the things I used to do (when on a break) was visit the library next to "A" shed and across the road form the ATC building (N1, of which more later). If you went down a dusty corridor you would enter the "historical" section.
Few people ever went down there but amongst the gems I had the pleasure of reading were hand written test pilots notes on various aeroplanes. I remember very well the notes someone made up for the Shackleton MR3. Lots of red ink and exclamation marks! I've often wondered why.
What has happened to all that? And all the museum "pieces" like the beautifully crafted wooden wind tunnel test models? I saw some of them as well and they were wonderful. Sad to think of them in a skip somewhere.
Back to ATC. When first posted to RAE Farnborough I went through the usual briefing from "Master Spy" (the RAE security people really were paranoid about the Soviets at the time). Next up was to find the ATC building. This I did, noting that some pillock had put the sign by the door on upside down so it read N1 instead of IN.. or so I thought.
Except that it was me that was (still is?) the pillock as all the buildings at the RAE had letters and numbers to identify them. ATC really was the N1 Building
Anyway I have many happy memories (and a few stories) of the place, watching the Dak, Comet, Varsity etc doing their various trials. A pity if it's all gone.
rgds BEX