Reconstructing the First World War Aerodrome at Croydon / Beddington: Photographs

Roger Potten has recreated two of Herbert Montgomery Martins photos from World War One. Compare The five ground crew (211):

with

and, to give context, where they are:

Then this one of Pt Fay on a Phelon & Moore 350 RFC issue motorbike: 

with

Then to give context, you can see they are near Plough Lane and New Barn Farm:

A ring around London: Beddington Aerodrome

Beddington Aerodrome was at first just meant to be an emergency landing field but public pressure after the Zeppelin air raids meant it became an aerodrome for fighter planes. It was one of a ring of ten aerodromes around London: Hounslow, Hendon, Hainault’s Farm, Sutton’s Park, Joyce Green, Farningham, Croydon, Biggin Hill, Wimbledon and Northolt.

Aerodrome not Airport!

Strictly speaking this blog will not be about Croydon Airport for the next 10 months or so. We'll be sharing research from our Heritage Lottery Funded project Fighting for Air about the origins of the airport in the aerodromes - Waddon and Wallington or Beddington - in Sutton and Croydon and the impact of the war locally.

In order to start this blog off on that theme, I thought we'd share some photographs of

Wellington or Beddington Aerodrome 1918

Wallington, also known as Beddington, aerodrome that Historic Croydon Airport Trust have copies. These belonged to a Royal Flying Corp (then Royal Air Force) officer Herbert Montgomery Martin. These photographs were scanned in by Cross and Cockade from a descendant of Martin some years ago.

This is just a short post to wet your appetite for the research and information to come from our project. . .

Waddon Camp

Bristol M1C crash landed in field at Beddington gasworks

Living near the Airport: The Aerodrome's Location

U3A member Peter Day writes on the disturbance caused by living near Croyon Airport:

In 1915 a small aerodrome was established at Beddington, one of a ring of such aerodromes built to protect London from Zeppelin raids. In 1918 another small airport, Waddon, was opened on the other side of Plough Lane to be used for test flights from the National Aircraft Factory No1. Plough Lane is the road running north from Russell Hill on this old map (on the left).

After the First World War these two aerodromes were combined (and Plough Lane eventually disappeared - though initially traffic was stopped to allow aircraft to arrive and depart) to become Croydon aerodrome, which opened in 1920. The buildings you can see now were part of a later development and the aerodrome entered a second phase in 1928.

"The Suburbs shall shake at the sound of the cry of thy pilots " Ezekiel xxvii 28

Image of crash on 9 September 1936

A prescient post from U3A project member Peter Day explores the potential dangers of living near to Croydon Airport:

The positioning of airports was as controversial in the 1930s as it is today. Low flying, night flying, noisy engines - and crashes, all contributed to a degree of ill-will from local residents. In the case of Croydon this came to a head on the morning of December 9th 1936. On that foggy morning a KLM DC2 crashed into houses near the airport shortly after take-off resulting in the deaths of 15 passengers and crew. This was the worst air accident there had been in the UK in terms of the number killed and a storm of protest blew up with questions in Parliament, local protest meeting and petitions to the Air Ministry.