Chigwell
CHIGWELL: Civil aerodrome & regional airport (Aka FAIRLOP and ILFORD AIRPORT)
Note: Although often referred to as FAIRLOP, this was in fact a seperate airfield, although the two FAIRLOP sites were situated alongside - see map below provided by Alan Simpson.
Operated by: The Straight Corporation t/as Southern Airways
Note: Now it seems more probably operated by Romford Flying Club
British airline user: Southern Airways
Flying club: Midland Bank Flying Club, Romford Flying Club
Note: Here again, there seems to be some confusion as the reports appear to indicate that the Midland Bank Flying Club originally intended to move from HANWORTH to MAYLANDS, possibly mistaking MAYLANDS for CHIGWELL? It now appears that the Midland Bank Flying Club moved across on the 20th August 1938 with their BA Swallows.
Note 2: It is very important to note that when, in July 1938, the new Secretary of State for Air, Sir Kingsley Wood announced the formation of the Civil Air Guard, this single initiative alone can probably explain why the RAF, when desperately in need of pilots by 1940, had a reserve to call upon of already competent pilots, ready to be trained for military front-line flying.
It is a complete myth that the UK was utterly unprepared for WW2. Several highly intelligent and well informed people were only too aware of the threat, and had taken steps to prepare the UK, despite the appalling degree of apathy in government circles. For example, the Hawker Hurricane was already flying and the Vickers-Supermarine Spitfire was getting going. But, we must remember that the development of their engines, the Rolls-Royce Merlin, was largely due to Lady Houston underwriting the development costs for the engines used for the Schneider Air Races just a few years before.
When the Civil Air Guard scheme was announced, members of the public could enroll in one of seventy-six flying clubs in the UK for basic flying training. The Romford Flying Club was one such Club. But, perhaps not surprisingly the 'Nimbys' were up in arms.
As Alan Simpson tells us, quoting Hansard from the 8th March 1939: 'CIVIL AIR GUARD, CHIGWELL'
"Mr. Hutchinson asked the Secretary of State for Air whether he is aware that considerable annoyance has been caused to residents in Ilford by aircraft from Chigwell aerodrome engaged in Civil Air Guard instruction flying over New North Road, Hainault, and by low flying; and whether he will inquire into these complaints, and take steps to mitigate the present nuisance?"
I do hope to find proof that a couple of years later, these same upstanding people were sending letters of complaint to Herr Hitler, Berlin, regarding the terrible noise and damage resulting from bomb dropping by the Luftwaffe.
Location: Just NE of the junction of Hainult Road and Forest Road, 1nm from BARKINGSIDE (FOREST FARM)
Period of operation: June 1938 to late 1939 only?
Runways: Grass airfield with a maximum Landing Run of: NE/SW 730 plus three shorter strips
NOTES:
The confusion about what this airfield should correctly be called wasn't helped by Flight magazine. As Alan Simpson records: "The Romford Flying Club has recently completed negotiations for use of a 100-acre landing field at Fairlop. This field has been licensed by the Air Ministry, and in future all pupils will receive instruction here."
In 1938 used by the Romford Flying Club for training flights due to MAYLANDS becoming surrounded by housing. The official opening ceremony was on the 24th September 1938 performed by Mrs F G (Maxine) Miles, Commissioner of the Civil Air Guard, who arrived in a Miles Monarch, (which she helped design I think?). Amongst the other aircraft attending were Miss Pauline Gower in her Spartan and a Monospar air ambulance. Plus, two famous German female pilots. Elly Beinhorn flying her Messerschmitt Me.108 Taifun, and Melitta Schiller Klemm 35, flying over from Germany…..hmmm? Possibly taking a few notes along the way around South East England? Who knows?
Probably the 'military' presence was because Romford Flying Club were also busy training Civil Air Guard recruits and in early 1939 had twelve aircraft in operation.
This photo of the Bristol Bombay is from Essex and its Race for the Skies 1900-1939 by Graham Smith. As an aside it appears that early in 1939, on the 4th of February the prototype Bristol Bombay K3583 made a forced landing at CHIGWELL. The undercarriage collapsed when it attempted to take-off resulting in it being written off . Nothing can be proven of course, but I suspect that the most probable cause of the undercarriage collapsing was the result of a heavy landing when it made the forced landing and an indequate engineering inspection.
This excerpt is also from Essex and its Race for the Skies 1900-1939 by Graham Smith and adds more details and info.
It is said that when war with Germany was declared this aerodrome soon lapsed into disuse. However, Alan Simpson has discovered another aspect - in early 1939 Ilford Borough Council were intent on building a new school on part of the site, thereby rendering it untenable as an airfield. And, as he says: "By early 1939. members of Romford Flying Club and Midland Bank Flying Club must have sensed their future at Chigwell was uncertain."
It really is astonishing to read, as Alan Simpson points out, that even as late as July 1939 the Midland Bank Flying Club was becoming most unimpressed with the way CHIGWELL was being managed. And indeed, in August The Midland Venture reported: "It has now proved possible to make arrangements for the transfer of the Club to another aerodrome with improved facilities." See below.
A BIT CONFUSING?
I can easily imagine several readers being confused when reading that I’m saying CHIGWELL was also known as FAIRLOP and ILFORD. Especially as FAIRLOP, (one of the LONDON AIRPORTS under consideration in the 1930s), was never built.
By great good fortune, in July 2017, Alan Simpson contacted me. He has been researching the aviation history in this part of Essex and sent me this map he has been working on - which in some respects are incredibly revealing - quite sensational in fact - portraying four adjacent airfields.
This map, as Alan points out, is drawn over a map in John Barfoot's book 'Over Here and Over There'. Surely this must be unique in the UK?
A MICHAEL T HOLDER GALLERY
More recently, in 2023, Mike Holder had also been doing a lot of research into this particular area, containing four/five airfields (!), (FOREST FARM being the western part of the WW1 FAIRLOP military aerodrome), and has provided the following items.
Note: In the 1936 aerial photo, please note that FOREST FARM aerodrome was on the western part of the WW1 FAIRLOP aerodrome. (See seperate listing). The excerpt is from Essex and its Race for the Skies 1900 to 1939 by Graham Smith.
This photo is from Essex and its Race for the Skies 1900 - 1939 by Graham Smith. Regarding the caption in the photo, I also think it is likely the picture was taken here. The main clue being the line up of BA Swallows.
This excerpt is from Action Stations.
The area view is from my Google Earth © derived database.
REPORTS
These extracts from the Ilford Recorder newspaper published on the 28th July 1938 illustrates perfectly the utter confusion I’ve often felt when trying to pin down the location for various airfields. “The Mayor of Ilford…was one of the spectators…at the aerodrome recently acquired by the Romford Flying Club, at Fairlop, to witness the inauguaration of a new 40-minute air service between Ilford, Margate and Ramsgate”. And, “Among the first passengers….(was)…Mrs Gordon, wife of the Romford Aerodrome chief”.
“The new air-line is the inspiration of Mr Whitney-Straight, millionaire racing driver, and principal of the Straight Corporation. Accompanied by four planes of the Romford Club, Mr Straight arrived at the new flying field – until a fortnight ago occupied by sheep – in his 200 m.p.h. Miles Hawk monoplane and a few minutes later a cabin plane from the Romford Aerodrome brought the Mayoress of Romford and her daughter to Ilford’s first airport”.
“About a quarter of an hour overdue the air-liner, (I’m pretty certain this was a DH84 Dragon), …glided to a halt in front of the hastily-built club-house that has still to be completed, and Squadron-Leader Eckersley Maslin, chief pilot of the Southern Airways, clambered from the cockpit of the twin-engined biplane”. “The six passengers embarked…(and)...the big airliner roared into the skies and headed back to the coast”.
Could you ask for more? A graphic illustration of how this event was viewed at the time. I especially loved reading about the “big airliner” that “roared into the skies”, don’t you? One small detail though, it now appears that this event took place at CHIGWELL and not FAIRLOP!
A TEMPORARY AERODROME?
There is an even better aspect remembering this was 1938 when ‘the war clouds were rolling over Europe’. What do you make of this, a paragraph headed “TEMPORARY AERODROME”. The reporter goes on to say, “Mr Whitney Straight, (surely a man in the know?), told a “Recorder” reporter that the present field, run by the Romford Flying Club, “would be used for the purpose of the Margate air service until the City of London airport, (FAIRLOP), was completed in three years time”. “Then we shall simply transfer to the new aerodrome” he explained, (Where was this to be?), “we have no intentions of competing with the City of London”. What did he mean by that last comment?
Trying to analyse these remarks by Mr Whitney Straight who was a very accomplished businessman of that time it seems difficult to detect he saw any threat of war from Germany doesn’t it? Yet a World War broke out about a year later. The newspaper report goes on to reveal a number of fascinating aspects regarding this period of aviation history and I think it’s worth quoting in full. The title for these three short paragraphs are titled, “ARRANGED IN SEVEN DAYS”.
It reads like this, “Return fare for the scheduled 40-minute trip to Margate and Ramsgate is 29s 6d., and ‘planes will be leaving the Fairlop flying ground every day at 9.15 a.m.” The second paragraph reads, “The whole venture has been fixed up in an amazingly short space of time. Mr Straight admitted that the scheme had been arranged in the last seven days”.
The final paragraph is pretty revealing too. “The Romford Flying Club only took the field over a fortnight ago, and on Tuesday morning, Post Office engineers were still engaged upon installing a telephone”. For that time then, a pretty sophisticated regional airport complete with a windsock, a barely completed hut, but a telephone installed! Unlike, for example the much used regional airport at HALDON in DEVON that could only boast a windsock and possibly a shed or tent as a terminal! Seen from the early years of the 21st century it has been often hard to adjust to what was necessary to become a regional airport!
THINGS KEPT ON HAPPILY GOING
Despite the increasing realisation, by March 1939, in the "higher orders" of government and society that WW2 was inevitable, for most of the population it was 'business as usual' and certainly so for the Midland Bank Flying Club, now based here.
As Alan Simpson reports: "In March, The Midland Venture reported the arrival of two new aircraft for the Midland Bank Flying Club at Chigwell. These had been eagerley awaited and would permit more comprehensive training: 'The two Gipsy II Moths now owned by the Club look very smart in their silver finish with the Bank colours on the rudder and are proving very reliable and satisfactory in every way.' For me of course this begs the question of the reliability of their previous BA Swallows?
Alan adds: "In May, a third de Havilland DH60M Moth was added to the Midland Bank Flying Club's fleet and used at Chigwell."
FUTURE PLANS (1939)
Alan also tells us: "When Dagenham BC's Housing & Town Planning Committee met in April, it considered an application for planning consent from Romford Flying Club to erect a clubhouse, lavatories and control hut at Chigwell aerodrome." The application was refused. But, in May, they did approve an application to install two petrol pumps and tanks, the consent being valid for six months! What utter nonsense was going on here?
What Alan also reveals is very interesting indeed. It appears that the Dagenham Borough Councils Engineer and Surveyor noted: "...that the aerodrome would not be licensed after the Corporation's airport at Fairlop was ready for use."
This certainly appears to indicate, contrary to so many opinions, that even at this stage, just prior to WW2, the new 'LONDON AIRPORT' was to be developed here. Was this to augment or replace CROYDON? It was of course all the work of fools, as was often the case in those days, right up to the highest levels in government. CRICKLEWOOD was the first fully manned and equipped international 'London Airport' until some bright spark realised that due to regular smog conditions, it was on the wrong side of London.
CROYDON was certainly a better location, but not such a lot better as it was still sitting in the 'bowl' of hills surrounding London and therefore still subject to being regularly fog-bound. Obviously, at that time, nobody in authority realised that the prevailing winds over the south east of England are from the south-west - so the most stupid place to plan a new airport - was in Fairlop!
THE SOUTHERN AIRWAYS FLEET
de Havilland DH.84 Dragons: G-ACJT and G-AECZ
de Havilland DH.90 Dragonfly: G-ADNA
GAL Monospar ST-6: G-ACGI
GAL Monospar ST-25 Jubilee: G-ADVH
Short S.16 Scions: G-ADDV and G-ADDX
BEING KEPT IN THE DARK?
This does of course raise the question of just how far the public were being kept 'in the dark'. The military were already on a state of readiness for war, and yet here we have members working for a major bank, seemingly blissfully unaware that another World War was about to erupt - which it did barely a month later when the Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain announced to the nation on the 3rd September that the United Kingdom was at war with Germany.
As Alan Simpson points out: "Later in August, as war clouds gathered over Europe, plans were made to restrict private flying. On 31 August, the Air Navigation (Emergency Restrictions) Order was introduced and, one month later, further regulations were issued under the Air Navigation (Restriction in Time of War) Order. These prohibited all civil aircraft flying over the United Kingdom without a special permit issued by the Secretary of State and even then aircraft were restricted to certain airports and corridors."
In effect all private flying and gliding ceased. As did nearly all airline operations throughout the UK. A few routes in Scotland for example, to serve the islands were still permitted, but that was pretty much the extent of civil flying throughout WW2.
BUT THE END WAS NIGH ANYWAY
Alan Simpson tells us: "In the case of Chigwell aerodrome, the introduction of restrictions on flying was largely academic as the debt-ridden Romford Flying Club had gone into receivership on 1 Sepember 1939."
AN AREA SUMMARY
It really is remarkable, and most unusual if not unique (?), to find over a fairly short period of, around fifty years, six seperate sites in such a relatively small area. This said, the Pre-WW1 site operated by Handley Page and the later military FAIRLOP WW1 sites are pretty much in the same location. The short lived civil aerodrome FOREST FARM, created after WW1, may have been part of the western end? There seems to be some debate around where the western end of the WW1 FAIRLOP aerodrome actually was.
However, the extent of CHIGWELL does not appear to be in doubt and this was just east. All these being to the north of Forest Road. South of Forest Road, and roughly south of CHIGWELL we have the WW1 HAINAULT FARM aerodrome. Finally, just to the west we have the much larger WW2 RAF FAIRLOP aerodrome.
Philip Polatch
This comment was written on: 2018-10-16 18:01:23My father, Sidney Frederick Polatch, joined the Midland Bank in 1936/7 having been educated at Bancroft School. Shortly after he joined the Midland Bank Flying Club. I have his flying logbooks the first of which starts on Apr 23rd 1940. I think there must be an earlier log which I cannot find. He was in DH82A Tiger Moths (G-AFMY,BAI ,BNR) flying from Hainault? The second log commences Aug19th 1940 when he joined the RAF initially flying Moths (5548,6979,4912,5196,5596,5547,5501,5512) . Might this also have been from Hainault?- the log does not note. About Oct 1940 he went to Southern Rhodesia training on Oxfords until March 1941. He was then posted to Coastal Command flying from Scotland and as P/O F/O in various flying boats (inc London, Stranraer , Lerwick, Catalina but mainly Sunderlands) on the north Atlantic patrols and in between a period in The Gambia on south Atlantic duties. I hope this of some interest to you. regards Philip polatch
Reply from Dick Flute:
Hi Philip, Many thanks indeed, I shall keep this posted. Best regards, Dick
Alan Simpson
This comment was written on: 2020-08-24 08:31:58I've just seen Philip's note, and I can confirm the following: G-AFMY was registered new to the Midland Bank Flying Club at Maylands on 16 January 1939. This aircraft was equipped for blind flying instruction with the necessary instruments and a hood to cover the rear cockpit. The aircraft was possibly destroyed in the fire at Maylands on 6 February 1940, but other sources say it was impressed into the RAF during the Second World War. G-ABAI was first registered in May 1930. It was registered to the Midland Bank Flying Club at Chigwell on 1 May 1939, having been acquired from the London Air Park Flying Club at Hanworth. The aircraft was later sold and its registration cancelled. G-ABNR was first registered in June 1931. It was regsitered to the Midland Bank Flying Club at Maylands on 9 December 1938. This aircraft was possibly destroyed in the fire at Maylands on 6 February 1940, but other sources say it was impressed into the RAF during the Second World War. All three aircraft were de Havilland DH60M Moths, not DH82A Tiger Moths. So, in answer to Philip's question, it is almost certain that your father's flights in these aircraft took place from the airfelds at Chigwell (Hainault) and/or Maylands (Romford). Chigwell and Maylands closed on the outbreak of the Second World War, and his RAF flying experience would have been elsewhere. Alan PS. If you have any photos of your father and/or the Moths at Chigwell/Maylands, I would be most interested in seeing them.
George Beckenham
This comment was written on: 2020-09-28 16:54:33RAF Chigwell is still of interest to me. In May 1940 my father took me and my brother to the camp after our house had been bombed in Stockwell. I was 7 years old and we stayed at the camp for a few weeks. My brother & I were given small tasks to do, such as filling sandbags. In the evenings some of the pilots, who I believe were from Canada, would get me to throw darts at the board. If I scored a bull they would give me a threepenny bit, which I kept in a tin. My brother and I were later evacuated to St Agnes, in Cornwall with our mother & sister. My dad was an RAF corporal who was involved in radio design and manufacture at the other nearby RAF station.
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