Dowding was given Bentley Priory as his headquarters. It was to be the nerve centre of Fighter Command. It was back in March 1926 that the Royal Air Force acquired a rather dilapidated house and land in Stanmore that is now known as Bentley Priory. On 26 May it became Headquarters of Inland Area that administered a number of air force home establishments and was under the command of Air Vice-marshal Tom Webb-Bowen CB, CMG. But before this, the 'Priory' had an interesting, yet chequered history. Originally, a rather insignificant small house that was owned by a Mr James Duberly it had been renovated, with the addition of many additional rooms that greatly increased its size, and became a highly prestigious country estate in the possession of The Hon James John Hamilton. In 1789 as 9th Earl and First Marquis of Abercorn, he engaged the services of architect Sir John Sloane to carry out massive extensions to the house and buildings at considerable cost. Later, it was owned by builder Sir John Kelp and when a Mr Frederick Gordon took over the elegant buildings and land it was turned into a luxurious private hotel. Before much of the property was sold off it had been used as a private boarding school for young ladies before the Royal Air Force acquired it in 1936.

An intricate telephone and communication system would have to be installed. What was happening around the British coastline would be clearly displayed on the huge map that occupied the ballroom. Reports from the long-distance radar could possibly be received direct, and then relayed to the Groups Headquarters. Any Intelligence information would most certainly be received first at Bentley Priory and then circulated to groups and military offices. Finally, all movements of enemy and friendly bombers would be tracked and displayed on the map, but possibly for reasons of not making the map board to complicated and messy, friendly fighter movements would not be shown. A series of lights would be installed on one of the walls, and these would indicate as to the state of readiness of fighter groups.

Hugh Dowding first spoke about how a war would be most quickly lost and stated that this might possibly be caused by indiscriminate air attacks on London and creating panic amongst its population. As an alternative, an immediate paralysis of the food supply would have exactly the same effect and that if the country could be secured against a quick decision of this kind, then the only defeat could come from the slower process of exhaustion of equipment, personnel, food, raw materials, sea transport and other resources. He went on to state that the focal point of the machinery of Government and the main centre for the distribution of the countries food supplies would be London itself, and concluded that the most important task would therefore be the defence of London itself. The most important task therefore would be that defending London would be the most important task in the defence of Great Britain. Dowding went on to say, that if he was the dictator, then first and foremost, he would destroy the enemy's Air Force at his airfields, reserve storage depots and factories etc. 
Dowding continued: 
"There is another possible form of attack which I think deserves closer study than it has received up to the present. I refer to the attacks on our food and supply ships at sea." 
He went on to say that the diversion of shipping away from the vulnerable areas of the Port of London and the Thames Estuary, to western ports be a matter of highest importance, his concern was the possibility of attacks on inland targets becoming unsustainable and that the bulk of offensive power being turned to supply ships at sea. 
He went on: 
"It seems to me that our shipping will, broadly speaking, be as open to submarine attack as it was in the last war and that it will now have to face the additional danger of attack from the air." 
On attacks on London, Dowding said that the main dangers would be fire, bomb explosion and gas, and it would probably occur in that order. He considered incendiary attacks on property, that would enable the enemy to utilise for purposes of destruction be the greatest danger that the population would have to face, that a single bomber might distribute a thousand small incendiary bombs, and with a dense population as the city of London a single bomber could initiate something like a hundred small fires. 
"There is a serious danger that groups of individual fires, which are not properly dealt with, will unite and cause conflagration which will be beyond the control of any fire fighting organisation which we are likely to be able to provide." he said. 
Remember, that this was a speech that Dowding gave in 1937. 
Based on the descriptive of the speech Dowding and Headquarters Fighter Command/Peter Flint pp11-12 

Dowding had a strong interest in radar, he believed that radar was to be the eyes of Britain's defence system. It is understandable then, that it was of great importance to Dowding that he had direct communications with radar stations from Bentley Priory. Over the last few years radar had improved by research and by trials. Dowding had faith in radar. 

It was at Orfordness in 1935 that radar had expanded to such a degree that further accommodation was required. Land was purchased at Bawdsey Manor near Felixstowe on the Suffolk coast, and here although the research team was quite small, the quality, variety and inventiveness was remarkable. By April 1937, they were engaged in radar trials endeavouring to locate aircraft flying on pre-arranged courses over the North Sea. The results were said to be confused and disappointing and Dowding thought that the general standard of information was as yet unacceptable for his Operations Rooms. Nevertheless, by August the same year a plan for the construction of coastal radar stations had already been agreed.

Radar was in the hands of both civilian scientists and RAF Signals specialists, and after studying the results of the unsatisfactory trials in April 1937, Squadron Leader Raymond Hart was to become very influential in the study of radar operations. With other members of the team they agreed that if the radar stations were sited close enough together, then there would be an overlap in their fields of observation, which this would make it possible for every part of the coast to be watched. Although the technique made things complicated, it did require very careful handling and correlation of readings from two adjacent stations, but this method allowed the stations to be linked like a chain along the coastline. The system was approved by Dowding who, from early in the peace had great faith in radar and progress was being made with correlated information from the radar stations being relayed directly to the Bentley Priory Filter Rooms.

Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding was to stay at Bentley Priory for the duration of the Battle of Britain and until he was relieved of his position as AOC Fighter Command. The 'Priory' was constantly in use throughout the rest of the war and today stands as a monument to the operations that were conducted there that finally led to victory in WWII.