Former Wellesbourne Mountford Spitfire Replica (N3310) Displayed atop Abingdon Garage

(Image: Maggie Harnew; Spitfire N3310 replica at Lodge Hill Garage, Abingdon)

A Supermarine Spitfire replica built for the 1969 movie Battle of Britain may have become a permanent fixture on the roof of the Lodge Hill Garage in Abingdon, Oxfordshire.

The Spitfire mock-up, which spent a number of years in a derelict state at Wellesbourne Mountford Airfield in Warwickshire, was bought by business owner Peter Jewson around 2011. It was intended to be a temporary exhibit atop Lodge Hill Garage but proved extremely popular with aviation enthusiasts in the area.

Wearing the serial number N3310 and coded AI-A, the aircraft was bought to honour the female pilots of the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) who delivered new and repaired Spitfires from factories to operational airfields around the UK during World War Two.

(Image: Robert Hodgson; replica Spitfire N3310 while at Wellesbourne Mountford)

More than 166 members of this group of largely unsung wartime heroes are understood to have died while carrying out their missions. Amy Johnson, the first woman to fly solo from Britain to Australia, was among those killed.

Speaking to the Oxford Mail, aviation enthusiast Mr Jewson said: “They had no radios, no weather reports and no bullets in the guns. If you met the enemy you were in trouble.”

(Image: Google Street View)

The full size fiberglass Spitfire replica is understood to have been built by Pinewood Studios as set dressing for the 1969 Battle of Britain film, which brought together a number of original airframes and relied on convincing large scale models for period airfield scenes.

The majority of Spitfire and Hurricane mock-ups were destroyed during filming to simulate the relentless raids on RAF Fighter Command’s 11 Group airfields by Luftwaffe bombers. A handful of replica aircraft were fitted with motorbike engines, allowing them to taxi.

(Image: Des Blenkinsopp)

One impressively choreographed take-off sequence, filmed at Duxford in Cambridgeshire, shows a Spitfire take a almost-direct hit by a falling German bomb before colliding with a fuel bowser and exploding in a fireball. Various retrieved wrecks can be seen during a later scene when exhausted RAF personnel drink tea near the main hangars as a BBC Home Service broadcast reports the day’s combat.

After filming was completed, the surviving warbird replicas were sold to museums and private buyers. One of the best collections of period mock-ups can be seen today at the Kent Battle of Britain Museums on England’s south coast.

(Image: Roger Templeman)

Spitfire N3310 sat in an unrestored condition on the edge of Wellesbourne Mountford Airfield – home to retired Avro Vulcan B2 XM655 – until moving to Abingdon several years ago. Now fully refurbished, the wartime aircraft replica looks like new in these photographs on the roof of Lodge Hill Garage, which deals in second-hand cars.

N3310 also shows up on Google Street View, though only from the main Oxford Road (A4183), not the service road immediately in front of the garage. The Spitfire was reportedly still in situ several months ago, and we hope it remains there for many years to come.