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LANCASTER’S LOST AIRFIELD

Gordon Clark

Abstract This paper charts the history of the airfield at Scale Hall, Lancaster, from 1912 to the present day.

Before World War 1 The first aeroplanes seen in the Lancaster area were Claude Grahame-White’s on 13 April 1910 – it landed off Bare – and Jules Vedrines’s over the Lune Valley and Clougha on 25 July 1911 during the Round Britain Air Race (Phillipson 1994, 9 & 12). On 14 July 1912 the first aircraft landed in Lancaster on a field at Scale Hall Farm. Robert B Slack flew from Southport to promote his aviation courses (Phillipson 1994, 16; Jefferson n.d.). His light, slow, single-seat Bleriot monoplane spent the night in a marquee erected for the event (Lancaster Observer and Chronicle 1912 12 July, 5, & 19 July, 5). The airfield had no facilities: it was simply a big field. The few civilian pilots could use the site for refuelling, in bad weather or as an overnight stop on a longer daytime flight in a short-range plane. The use of farmers’ fields was normal at this time. Elsewhere, planes used beaches, as at Southport, Blackpool and Middleton Sands. Blackpool hosted aviation meetings in 1909 and 1910 and Morecambe had an air carnival in July 1914 (Phillipson 1994, 18; Bingham 1990, 151).

World War 1 The first aircraft to land at Scale Hall after the British declaration of war on 4 August 1914 was Lt B C Hucks’s Bleriot on 18 August when he came to dine with Lord and Lady Ashton at Ryelands (Lancaster Guardian 1914 22 August, 5). The wartime role of Scale Hall airfield is difficult to trace. The aviation literature for the period focuses on the planes, the pilots (and casualties) and the combat: the airfields are under-recorded (Cross & Cockade International n.d.). There were no published wartime revisions of the pre-war Ordnance Survey maps and the interwar maps similarly showed nothing because there were no permanent structures to map. It was just a field (Delve 2000). There are no known plans of Scale Hall airfield during World War 1. The local newspapers mentioned nothing due to censorship. After the war, however, the Lancaster Observer (1919 2 May, 4) noted that “Scale Hall field has during the war been a recognised landing station, but the restrictions on newspapers prevented the fact being made public”. Flight (1919 28 August, 1153) noted that Lieutenant Macrae MC was using the airfield and its Bessonneau hangers (timber-and- canvas structures, quickly erected by the Royal Flying Corps). Tents for the staff would be normal except at the large bases, and a large, level, obstacle-free field would suffice for a landing ground.

The online lists of Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) airfields are divided on whether Scale Hall became any sort of official airfield during World War 1. The Forgotten Airfields website says it was an RFC site as do Davis and the Wings of Glory website (Forgotten Airfields n.d.; Davis 2007; Wings of Glory 2013). Ruxton (1986) lists it as a World War 1 airfield, though not necessarily an RFC one. He classifies it as a ‘Landing Ground’ (a simpler site) not a ‘Service Aerodrome’. Bones Aviation Page (2011) says it was used in World War 1, but not by whom or for what. Other major listings of UK airfields are less informative. The UK Active and Disused Airports website (n.d.) shows only where Scale Hall was. The Airfields of Britain Conservation Trust website (n.d.) says Scale Hall airfield has an earliest known date of February 1918, which is unlikely. The UK Airfields and Airports website (2014) does not list it, nor does The Aerodrome website or the unreferenced but extensive list of RFC airfields on Wikipedia (The Aerodrome n.d.; Wikipedia 2017a). The major operational bases of the RFC were concentrated in

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South-East England and along the east coast for obvious operational reasons. There is no evidence linking Scale Hall airfield with the wartime production of wooden aircraft wings for the DH9 at Waring and Gillow’s factory in Lancaster.

So it seems that during World War 1 Scale Hall airfield was still little more than a basic stopping point or landing ground for flights between southern England and Scotland and Ireland. The Bessonneau hangers would protect aircraft from bad weather and provide basic cover for repair work. There were no other permanent facilities. This would fit with an Royal Flying Corps categorisation as a Third Class Landing Ground (Wikipedia 2017b), like, for example, Horsegate in North East England (North East Land Sea Air Museum n.d.) and Tibbenham in Norfolk (Norfolk Heritage Explorer n.d.).

Between the World Wars After World War 1, there were many surplus planes and well-trained pilots, a surfeit of airfields and a much heightened appreciation of the potential for aviation. How would Scale Hall airfield fit in?

Flight noted that at Scale Hall Lieutenant Macrae MC “reigns in solitary glory over the Government Bessoneaux and landing ground” (Flight 1919 28 August, 1153). Clearly traffic was not brisk. However, on 1 May 1919 (pp567–8) Flight reported a plan for a UK airmail service, with Scale Hall as an intermediate stop on the London (Hounslow) – Manchester (Didsbury) – Belfast (Aldergrove) route. The Lancaster Observer and Morecambe Chronicle (1919) picked up on this plan on 2 May (p4) in optimistic terms. “An air station between the two towns [...] will probably be as important in time as some of the great railway junctions are now”. However, the local area itself was unlikely to generate much traffic, and arguably an airfield here was needed only for as long as aircraft had a short range and needed refuelling stops. The omens were not good. In June 1919 Alcock and Brown made the first non-stop Trans-Atlantic flight. On 16 May the Lancaster Observer and Morecambe Chronicle reported (p6) a non-stop flight from Glasgow to Manchester in four hours. And on 2 May (p8) the paper reported the lifting of the wartime ban on civilian flying but also the imposition of new regulations on pilots, planes and airfields to ensure safe civilian flying. That would mean investment in airfield facilities that could be justified only by sufficient traffic. In 1920 the Government allowed local authorities to build municipal airports and in 1929 it provided funds for this from the Unemployment Grants Committee. Manchester and Blackpool took up this option: Lancaster and Morecambe did not. By 1929 the new Morecambe Road had been open for seven years (Endnote 1). It linked the two towns on a route that was broader, more direct, almost level and cut across the field pattern: but it removed the northern portion of the airfield. Whereas before 1922 there were potential maximum runway lengths at Scale Hall of 525 metres and 845m (Endnote 2), the maximum after 1922 was only 320m, and aircraft were getting bigger and heavier and needed longer runways than Scale Hall could provide. A 500-metre runway was about the norm for RFC stations in World War 1 (Wikipedia 2017b). A 320-metre runway was definitely short. In 1933 only eight runways, out of the 105 British landing grounds with recorded runway lengths that were listed by the Automobile Association, were shorter than Scale Hall’s and another four equalled it (Automobile Association 1933).

Nonetheless Scale Hall was still sufficient for private pilots in small planes. In the early 1930s the Automobile Association (AA) provided guidance by inspecting and listing landing grounds for its members across the UK. They gave site plans, details of the airfield’s facilities and how to get fuel (Automobile Association 1933; Flight 1932, 538). Here is Scale Hall’s entry: Lancaster SD 45 62 [OS map reference] AA Landing Ground [LG] – J.L Dixon, Scale Hall Farm, Lancaster. Fuel: Skerton Garage. Barton & Townley, Lancaster would bring petrol to

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LG on request. Hotels: County Hotel or Royal King’s Arms, Lancaster. Telephone: Scale Hall Farm, adjoining LG. No hangars. The AA plan shows the restricted layout after 1922 (Figure 1) (Automobile Association 1933). The southern boundary remained the Midland Railway’s branch line from Lancaster’s Green Ayre station to Morecambe. The electrification stanchions were a landing hazard. After 1922 the almost parallel northern boundary was the new Morecambe Road with its tall lamp-posts. The eastern and western edges were the nineteenth-century field boundaries.

Figure 1 The layout of Scale Hall airfield after 1922 (Automobile Association 1933)

One use of the site was as a venue for ‘joy flights’, as early as 1927 (Morecambe Guardian and Observer 1927 27 July, 12). Sir Alan Cobham’s ‘Flying Circus’ travelled the UK in the summers between 1932 and 1935 in support of National Aviation Day (Flight 1932 17 June, 538). The public could inspect planes on the ground and for 4 shillings could go for a short local flight (Royal Air Force Museum n.d.). A local resident remembers doing just that from Scale Hall (Chesterman 2017).

Interestingly, Lancaster, Morecambe and District Aero Club, formed in 1934, chose the expanses of Middleton Sands rather than the constricted Scale Hall site for their clubhouse and hanger (Flight 1934 6 September, 921). As early as 1929 there had been proposals for a Lancaster–Morecambe airport at White Lund, a far bigger site south of the railway line from Scale Hall that straddled the municipal boundary (Morecambe Guardian and Heysham Observer 1929 13 July, 7). The boroughs jointly bought White Lund around 1935 (Morecambe Guardian and Heysham Observer 1935 28 June, 9). This was the site of a National Filling Factory for shells during World War 1 (Churchill 2018).

The airfield/field at Scale Hall had acquired other uses in the interwar period. ‘It was during the week commencing 30th July 1925 that the Royal Agricultural Show paid a visit to the

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Contrebis 2018 v36 district and they set up their tents up in Farmer Dixon’s field at Scale Hall… We were not to see the show again until the first week in August 1939 when the show was pitched on the site that was intended to be used as an aerodrome at White Lund. In fact there were two hangers there at the time which within a few months housed a pair of antiquated Whitley Bombers which were used for the instruction of the RAF.’ (Spalding c.1972, 345).

World War 2 Scale Hall’s role in World War 2 is difficult to detect through the veil of censorship. The interwar and immediate post-war OS maps show no sign of an airfield, probably because there were no permanent structures to record. Whatever was operationally necessary could be provided and removed quickly. A 1200m-runway was required for World War 2 fighters, so Scale Hall’s 320m was clearly inadequate for flying operations (Delve 2000). There is no direct evidence for activities at the Scale Hall airfield during World War 2.

Nonetheless the Royal Air Force (RAF) did have a major presence in Morecambe in World War 2 (Endnote 3). RAF Morecambe – though not an operational base with runways – is listed as home to No 9 School of Technical Training between late 1939 and May 1942. It provided training for flight mechanics (the engines) and flight riggers (the fuselages) (Air of Authority n.d.; Ferguson 2004; Royal Air Force Commands 2008; Endnote 4). White Lund was also home to a sub-site of No 61 Maintenance Unit (1947–9) (Air of Authority n.d.; Endnote 5). Both these units would have needed extensive outdoor and covered space that Scale Hall or White Lund could provide but built-up Morecambe could not. Aircraft and engines for repair could have been brought in on large RAF road-trailers (the ‘Queen Marys’). Aerial photography in 1947 of Hustlers joinery works on the west side of White Lund shows that their premises resemble Nissen Huts and RAF Type 2 Hangers as at St Athan, Glamorgan (Endnote 4). In the north-east corner of White Lund are very large sheds and 122 large huts, the latter storing aluminium and magnesium powders for repairing fuselages (Morecambe Guardian and Heysham Observer 1946 27 July, 2 & 5; Britain From Above 2017). The White Lund site is remembered locally for striping and re-building aircraft using three hangers (Jefferson n.d.). Two of Jordan’s interviewees remember the aircraft hangers and the riggers on Westgate (the access road for White Lund) (Jordan 2001). Several people’s memories of an airstrip on White Lund are recorded on a local website (Morecambe BayWeb Message Board 2009). However, there is no other evidence for a White Lund airstrip as such, as distinct from training in aircraft maintenance and maintenance operations during and after the war. There were also the spasmodic interwar and post-war municipal aspirations for a civilian aerodrome at White Lund that came to nothing.

Scale Hall, adjacent to White Lund and across the railway line, could have been used for additional aircraft storage and ground testing during World War 2. But there is no photographic or cartographic evidence for this, and the route between the sites would have been circuitous: using only White Lund is more likely. With Scale Hall no longer big enough for landings and take-offs, the land east of the airfield and impinging some way into it became temporary government offices to house Post Office staff decanted from London who dealt with National Savings, money orders and the Post Office Savings Bank (The Visitor 1976, 22 September, 11). They also occupied the Broadway Hotel (Bingham 1990, 243). The offices were accessed from the recently built Ovangle Road. The buildings are shown on the OS 1:25,000 map SD 46 (revised 1938–50, published in 1952) and they were still visible on aerial photography in 1988 (Lancashire County Council 1988).

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After 1945 The pressure for the Government to release White Lund for a municipal airport came alive again in 1946 (Morecambe Guardian and Heysham Observer 1946 27 July, 5 quoting the Morecambe and Lancaster Joint Aerodrome Sub-Committee). The idea was finally abandoned only in 1957 – too expensive to build and probably loss-making – in favour of a White Lund industrial estate (Morecambe Guardian and Heysham Observer 1957 20 April, 1). Scale Hall remained as fields till the 1990s. Today (2018) Scale Hall has been almost completely covered in the housing estate called Grosvenor Park. Grosvenor Park Primary School fills the site of the government offices. The existence of an airfield here is now hard to envisage. Part of the western side of the airfield is now under the expanded Bay Gateway (A683). The only part of the airfield that retains something of its former appearance is the south-west corner which is a boggy triangle between the Bay Gateway, the railway line (now a cyclepath) and Hadrian Road. The original farm track and hedges here are still visible. A Google Earth image of the site is available (UK Active & Disused Airports n.d.) and Figure 2 (below) shows Grosvenor Park estate.

Discussion The original reason for an airfield in the Lancaster area was as an intermediate stop for short-range aircraft on long-distance flights. When the range of planes extended quickly after World War 1 this justification for Scale Hall airfield diminished except for some private flying. The local area could not support scheduled services (Endnote 6) and the two borough councils were probably wise not to follow 42 other municipal authorities in creating their own airport (AA 1933, note by Paul Francis).

The plan for an airport at White Lund after 1945 came to nought, just like the similar plan for Scale Hall after 1919. Even without the truncation of the site by the new Morecambe Road in 1922, Scale Hall airfield was constricted and would have been difficult to expand. Once built, Morecambe Road definitively restricted the site to minor flying activity and perhaps some wartime use, until housing became a better use of the land than either grazing or flying.

Figure 2 Grosvenor Park (formerly Scale Hall airfield) in the centre with part of White Lund industrial estate (bottom left) and the College of Education (top right) (Google Earth) 17

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Endnotes 1) The prior route from Lancaster to Morecambe was via Cross Hill and Torrisholme, longer and hilly. 2) A 525-metre runway was possible on a north-south alignment, acceptable for light, early World War 1 aircraft such as the Sopwith Pup. A longer runway, roughly west-east, would be possible if a hedge were removed between fields, which would gave a length of about 845m. 3) The Midland Hotel became a hospital (Burns Unit) between 1940 and 1946. The Clarendon Hotel was the HQ and the Clifton Hotel the Officers’ Mess. Much of the work at RAF Morecambe was recruitment, basic training and demobilisation for RAF and WAAF personnel, which could take place in requisitioned buildings in the town itself (Royal Air Force Association n.d.). 4) There are no known photographs of No 9 School at White Lund but those of No 4 School at St Athan (Glamorgan) show the scale and buildings of such Schools (Royal Air Force St Athan n.d.). 5) Maintenance Units stored aircraft and components; repaired and tested them; did upgrades and modifications; did acceptance checks; fitted equipment; and carried out periodic maintenance. 6) There was a short-lived passenger service in 1935 by United Airways from Middleton Sands where some pioneer flying took place in 1911 (UK Airfields and Airports 2014 n.d.). This site was also used by several local aero clubs between the 1930s and 1950s.

Acknowledgement The author acknowledges the comments from an anonymous referee.

Author profile Gordon Clark was Senior Lecturer in Geography, . Email: [email protected]

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