Trent Park
TRENT PARK: Private airstrip
Operated by: The Sassoon family, Sir Philip Sassoon especially?
Location: The estate of Trent Park is E of the A111
Runway: The airstrip was apparently laid out parallel to the road within the grounds running east from the Hockey Centre. The existing sports hall was the original hangar. However, it now appears that the original hangar was situated on the site now occupied by the Hockey Centre, and, the visiting aircraft landed in an area just north of the present day golf course. Typically opinions seem to vary and I wonder if somebody with detailed knowledge could kindly help to clear these matters up.
Period of operation: Probably 1930s only?
NOTES: Right from the start of flying in the UK the nobility were involved to quite a large extent. And especially during the interwar years, they often very enthusiastic to promote aviation. And of course parts of their manicured grounds in these ‘stately homes’ invariably provided ideal landing sites. I am very keen to discover all of them. Please add your comments if you know of any not already listed in this 'Guide'.
Today it is probably quite difficult to imagine the sheer scale of luxury some of these sites aspired to and the history of Trent Park is well worthy looking into. In the 1920s and 30s, (when the airstrip was laid out), the degree of hospitality extended by Sir Philip Sassoon was quite extraordinary. The most lavish and glamorous parties were held here with such numbers of staff to put even the finest hotels to shame.
NOTABLE GUESTS
Amongst the notable guests were Charlie Chaplin, George Bernard Shaw, Winston Churchill, David Lloyd George and members of the Royal family. Indeed, a large obelisk was installed to impress the honeymooning Duke and Duchess of Kent in 1934.
However, as is so often the case when investigating aviation history, the connections seem to carry on forever in ever increasing circles. Apart from obviously fulfilling the millionaire 'playboy’ role Sir Philip Sassoon also fulfilled a role in politics, becoming the private secretary to David Lloyd George and later becoming the Air Minister.
But, despite his wealth and influence a bout of influenza in 1939 turned into a fatal lung infection. Probably sorted out today with a bog standard course of antibiotics? I mention this to point out, as ‘Flying Sites’ go, “…his ashes were scattered across the estate by a plane by 601 Squadron.” This was the ‘Millionaires’ Squadron based at NORTHOLT, also at TANGMERE in the ‘Battle of Britain’ so it seems fairly certain the ashes were dropped from a Hawker Hurricane. Quite fitting as the Hurricane was, by far, the single RAF fighter type that won 'The Battle of Britain'.
KEEPING AN AEROPLANE
In 2011 I discovered Women with Wings by Mary Cadogan and within its pages discovered this story. She refers to an article published in April 1930 with an account from Woman’s Magazine by Sicele O’Brien titled ‘Keeping an Aeroplane of One’s Own.’ Sicele O’Brien was, “….a plucky pilot who continued to fly even after losing a leg in a crash.”
To quote from Mary Cadogan; “She suggested that ‘a great many people would learn to fly, and keep their own private aeroplanes’ if they were not scared off by ‘exaggerated ideas of the cost, and of the imaginary difficulty of housing such a large and beautiful object with its wide-spreading wings’. She blithely explains that most modern light aeroplanes ‘can be folded or opened by a girl single-handed in less than two minutes’, and that when folded, the machine can be accommodated in an average-sized garage.
AN EASY MATTER
It is, apparently, a comparatively easy matter to establish a ‘private aerodrome on one’s own estate’, but should there be too many trees, telegraph wires or houses in the way of take-offs and landings, one of the flying clubs springing up all over the country’ would be happy to offer its facilities. Sicele O’Brien goes on to explain that modern machines are fairly easy to maintain ‘if one has even a wee bit of a mechanical mind’. It is simply a question of emptying grit or water from the carburettor filter, cleaning the sparking plugs, adjusting the tappets and oiling the valve rockers.”
I’d love to run this past the engineering department at the Light Aviation Association today, let alone the CAA, why do they go on about such issues in so much detail? This said, and on a much more serious note I would argue that in her way Sicele O’Brien could be quite rightly regarded as a visionary? In her own way and within the constraints of her time and privilege, she was in effect making an argument for more people to go flying affordably? Something that has indeed happened, in ever increasing numbers on average as the years progress.
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