Duchlage Park
DUCHLAGE PARK: Temporary Landing Ground (Aka CRIEFF)
Operated by: Mr H J D Astley
Location: Just S of Crieff town centre, about 15nm W of Perth city centre
Period of operation: 17th August 1912
A MICHAEL T HOLDER GALLERY
Note: The newspaper article was published in the Edinburgh Evening News of the 9th August 1912. The photos were published in the Dundee Courier on the 19th August 1912.
Note: The magazine article was published in Boxing World and Mirror of Life on the 28th August 1912. The second magazine article was published in The Aeroplane on the 29th August 1912.
Note: The local area view is from my Google Earth © derived database.
NOTES: At this period Mr H J D Astley was really quite famous. Pretty much in the top ranks of the aviators touring the country giving 'exhibitions of flying' to the general public. Today of course it might be hard to envisage why the appearance of just one aviator with his machine, (as aeroplanes were then usually called), giving an 'exhibition of flying', or display as we would now describe them, could attract such huge crowds.
The reason of course, as described above, was that this visit to Crieff was the first ever visit to the town by an aeroplane. Also, unless somebody had witnessed a manned balloon ascent during the previous century, rather unlikely in Crieff (?), for most if not all of the spectators (?), this would have been the first time they had seen a human being in the air.
Sadly, Mr Astley did not live much longer after this display. He died when he lost control of his Blériot whilst giving a display at Balmoral, County Antrim, Northern Ireland on the 21st September. I have a picture in my entry for BALMORAL, taken just a second or two before the fatal crash.
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