Moulsey Hurst
MOULSEY HURST: Temporary balloon launch site
Operated by: James Sadler
Location: From a site in what is now known as West Molesey
Period of operation: Early in 1785 (Is the date known?)
NOTES
James Sadler was the first Englishman to make a manned balloon flight in England and this was in Oxford on the 4th October 1784. (See CHRIST CHURCH MEADOW, OXFORDSHIRE). The first manned balloon flight in England was by Vincenzo Lunardi on the 15th September 1784. (See MOORFIELDS - LONDON).
This flight, in which he was accompanied by W. Wyndham MP, was very ambitious as they intended to land in France. Unfortunately they only managed to make the Thames estuary. Why Sadler elected to ascend from a location so far away from France seems a complete mystery.
If he had chosen a location like Dover he may well have been the first Englishman (or British person) to cross the English Channel as his balloon obviously had the range. The honour of piloting the first balloon flight across the English Channel went to the Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard who achieved this on the 7th January 1785. (See DOVER FLYING SITES - KENT, for an account of this most extraordinary endeavour).
THE FIRST BALLOON FLIGHT IN THE UK
The first recorded balloon flight in the UK was made by James Tytler from COMELEY GARDENS (MID-LOTHIAN) in Edinburgh in August 1784.
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