This square has four different types of land. The southern half is part of the airfield; see
SD1770 for information.
SD1771 : Walney Airfield
The NW corner is part of the North Walney Nature reserve (see SD1772), with its ponds created by gravel extraction.
SD1771 : North Walney Nature Reserve
The north-central area has a number of concrete tracks with branches off leading to circular parking places, where I deduce that aeroplanes were parked during the war so that they were dispersed and could not all be hit in one pass of enemy aircraft. The following photograph is at
SD173718
SD1771 : Old Roadway
This area was fields in the 19C, although partly reverting to rough ground by 1891, and some of the ditches might relate to the field boundaries. One ditch in particular, from
SD174717 to
SD175718, seems to match.
In the NE corner there are salt marshes, which seem to be more extensive that they were in the 19C.