Badgeworth
BADGEWORTH: Civil aerodrome (Aka HUNT COURT)
Operated by: 1916 - Cheltenham and West of England Aviation Company
1919 - The Cheltenham Aviation Company
Flying School: 1919 - Cheltenham School of Aviation
Location: Just SSW of Badgeworth village. About 3.5nm E of Gloucester city centre and about 3.5nm SW of Cheltenham town centre
Period of operation: 1916 to 1920 only?
A MICHAEL T HOLDER GALLERY
Note: This location has proved to be quite a task in many ways, new information coming to light over the years. Mike Holder has, for example, since found, in 2024, this article below published in 1916.
This article was published in the Cheltenham Chronicle on the 23rd September 1916.
Mike also found these two photos published in Wings over Gloucestershire by John Rennison.
FROM 1919
This is a great example of just how much work goes into producing many of the listings within this 'Guide'. And even then, sometimes ending up with a number of questions still to be answered. In May 2022 I was kindly contacted by Mike who had found the advert, (first item above), published in the Aeroplane magazine on the 19th February 1919. Continuing to search for more information, he unearthed the newspaper article, (second item above), published in the Gloucestershire Echo on the 14th December 1920. Armed with such exact information, (more or less), he set about tracing the route taken by the fox hunt. (Third item above).
Feeling reasonably certain this should reveal the exact location of the aerodrome on maps of the period, instead he drew a blank. He then contacted me as surely I would know about it? It was after all, judging from the advert, a well founded enterprise. But no, I had never heard of it. So, for Mike, back to the 'drawing board' for more investigation.
THE SOLUTION
Two days later Mike contacted me. He had found it! Not one to give up he had kept on searching and found an Ordnance Survey map for the 1912 to 1922 period. And there it was - although not marked as such. The clue was in the advert, stating, "In size it is well over a hundred acres." There was, as can be seen in the local map below, only one field near Badgeworth anywhere near this size. And, it appeared to show a hangar on its southern boundary.
After the end of WW1 there were large numbers of people who had served in the armed forces, especially the RFC/RAF of course, who were keen to continue being involved in aviation. The sixth item above, the article in the Cheltenham Looker On, published on the 14th June 1919, gives us a good idea about the kinds of ideas and plans circulating at the time. Most of them 'pie-in-the-sky' concepts, needless to say, regardless of the obvious merits.
Fledgling regional 'airline' services did appear after 1919 but mostly they were short lived. The main reasons being a paucity of suitable aerodromes, virtually no suitable aircraft, and invariably a lack of serious long term financial backing being available. Indeed, it wasn't until 1929, when the then very famous aviator Sir Alan Cobham embarked on his mammoth tour of mainland Britain to exhort towns and even many cities, to establish municipal aerodromes, that developments were starting to show results. No doubt his Tour made a significant impact?
The eighth item is from UK Airfields Past and Present.
Note: The newspaper article was published in the Western Daily Press on the 19th January 1920. The local area and area views are from my Google Earth © derived database.
It really is a most interesting 'chicken-and-egg' conundrum. Which came first? It would seem, generally speaking, that they both developed more or less, in unison? As more civil aerodromes became available, the aircraft manufacturers seized upon the opportunity to design and build aircraft specifically for that emerging regional airline market. Which was of course developing, more or less, in conjunction with the forthcoming 'Great Depression'.
But of course, we need to bear in mind that huge economic downturns do not, in the main, affect the very wealthy - and they of course were the prime target for passenger revenue by the emerging regional airlines. They were of course pretty much the only people flying abroad and in those days the aircraft were designed to handle just one class of accommodation - first class!
Once the regional airlines got going in the early 1930s, with aircraft coming along from British manufacturers such as the Airspeed, Avro, de Havilland, and General with their Monospar series, Westland etc, most of them did good business during the period until that upstart Austrian, Adolph Hitler, and his cronies, decided to embark on expansion plans for Germany.
If anybody can kindly offer more advice and information, this will be much appreciated.
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