Moorfields
Note: This map only gives a rough position for this site. Many mentions can be found, but so far I cannot find an exact location. If anybody can kindly provide this, the advice will be most welcome.
MOORFIELDS: Balloon ascent venue (First balloon ascent in England)
Operated by: Count Vincenzo Lunardi (22) secretary to the Neapolitan ambassador. Italy had yet to be created as a unified country or State
Location: Honourable Artillery Company Park, Moorfields
Period of operation: 15th September 1784
NOTES: The first balloon flight in the United Kingdom was by James Tytler in August 1784. See COMELY GARDENS (MID-LOTHIAN). However, the first balloon flight by an Englishman was on the 4th Octber 1784 from CHRIST CHURCH MEADOW, Oxford, by James Sadler.
This flight by Lunardi is often recorded but usually with few details; for example, the duration of this flight, from somewhere in ‘London’, sometimes described as ‘The Artillery Grounds’, and was said to have taken two hours fifteen minutes. The balloon used was probably a ‘Montgolfier’ or hot-air type according to some.
On the other hand I much later found this account by John Harding in his book Flying’s Strangest Moments: “His first machine was a hydrogen balloon made of oiled silk, with a diameter of 33 feet and a volume of 18,200 cubic feet. His first flight took place on the 15 September 1784, in the presence of the Prince of Wales and other distinguished personages, from the grounds of the Honourable Artillery Park at Moorfields in London.”
Mr Harding goes on to say: “At 1 p.m., before a crowd of more than 150,000, he shook hands with the Prince, lifted his dog and cat into the carriage of his red-and-blue-striped balloon, climbed in and launched his aerostatic ménage à trios into the sky, rising to a height of four miles.” This is about 21,000ft and I would ask, how was this altitude measured? Was a reliable barometric altimeter available in those days? Even if he did reach these heights it was a risky business with the cold and lack of oxygen. But he was young and fit. Oddly enough (?) despite such a fullaccount, Mr Harding gives no flight time.
However, Mr Harding’s next statement intrigues me. He says: “He eventually landed near North Mimms, where he left his cat (said to be not best pleased with the experience) in the care of a local women, before taking off again, finally touching down safely in a field near Ware, in Hertfordshire.” I have no reason I can think of to refute this, but exactly how did Lunardi manage to control this? To descend I can understand easily enough, but how did he manage a second flight? By simply dumping more ballast? If so surely this appears to indicates= a remarkable degree of foresight and pre-planning by Lunardi, or was it just luck? He having the presence of mind to realise he still had just enough hydrogen in reserve to do another local flight?
A BIT OF HISTORY
It seems worth bearing in mind that the first ever recorded manned and non-tethered flight took place less than a year before in France when on 21st November 1783 when Jean François Pilâtre de Rozier and the Marquis d’Arlandes ascended, in a hot-air Montgolfier type, both of whom were simply passengers with virtually no means of controlling the flight.
A few yars ago I made this note: A decade later the Count was still doing his aeronauting and, in 1795 it is reported, carried the first Englishwoman aloft, one Mrs Letitia Ann Sage. Not so it now seems, as it was just one year later in 1785. See SOUTHWARK (LONDON). If anybody knows better I would look forward to advice.
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