Loddon
Note: This map only shows the position of Loddon within the UK.
LODDON: Temporary airstrips
Location: The village is located just N of the A146, about 6nm NW of Beccles
NOTES: In the early 1930s it is reported that two airstrips were used by ‘Joy-ride’ operators. The first field used was just north of the fork on the Mundham road, (W of Loddon), and the second near the Beccles road, SE of Loddon, (under the A146 Loddon bypass today).
One of the aircraft, (it could have been the same one on both visits of course?), was a converted Avro 504 which carried three passengers. In the early 1980s one Loddon resident could still recall it cost each passenger 2/6d for a flight over Loddon, Hardley and Langley. I’d estimate a flight time of around ten minutes - chock to chock. 2/6d was a serious amount of money in those days but I suppose we need to remember that just getting a flight in an aeroplane was, in many ways, perhaps the equivalent of taking a ‘Champagne Special’ supersonic flight in Concorde? A one-off event in life, never to be repeated? How quickly times have changed.
Within thirty years many if not most of the people taking these joy-rides would, for example, be able to take Inclusive Tour holidays to destinations right across Europe.
Much later, on the 17th August 1975, Mike Seeley and Bob Marjoram landed in a field off the Bungay road, (S of Loddon), in the Piper Cub G-BCOB. On the 6th November 1982 the Agusta A.109A G-HELY operated by Barratt Homes visited their Stubbs Green site.
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