AVRO hangars for sale

They weren’t showing any bids at all when I hit the rack last night (about 8am UK time). Checked it when I got up this morning & it was sold.

At least with a sale price of 100K we can safely assume that it won’t be weighed for $150/ton as scrap. It all fit inside a 40ft conex so I’m guessing no more than 20 tons.

You would have thought that if you had £100K to blow on a rust hacked down shed that you would have a few quid to pay somebody to look at the provenance. All the information I have gathered is readily available via Google.

Presumably there was more than one bidder to reach £100K and as somebody has already said you could build a replica for a fraction of the price paid so presumably they feel that it has heritage value.

Let’s hope we get to find who the purchaser is.

Some daft sod has apparently paid £100,000 for it.

A Flight article states that Roe actually purchased 3 of the hangars at Alexandra Park. Clearly the single hangar, D, in the images so far is identical to those at Alexandra Park so it would seem highly likely that that is the case.

The 1938 OS map shows New Hall Farm, now with all the hangars in area D which are referred to as the Flight Hangars. My reference point B right at the end of the track at the entrance to the farm “yard” as shown on previous maps. The hay barn has gone and now we see a building which I have labelled “C”. This building consisted of the “sale” hangar at the south-eastern end and then a series of “sheds”.

NEW HALL FARM 1938 OS XXVIII.NE MU

So the map is 1938 so the “C” buildings were erected some time between 1932 and 1938.

These buildings appear in a photograph IWM APT 16382B of the Tudor IV taken in November 1947.

IWM APT 16382B WOODFORD NOV 47 MU

I have labelled some paintwork as “camouflage” however, with second thoughts perhaps dark distinctive paintwork would have been better.

The Athenas in the next picture date it circa 1948-50 and in the background is the “sale” hangar together with the other sheds.

AVRO 701 ATHENA WOODFORD C1948-50 MU

Note that there is no sign writing on the “sale” hangars.

What I find strange about the sign writing is that it is not in any recognisable “Avro” format.

Take a look on this site of a picture taken in 1996 where the writing looks fairly new. Read the un-referenced text. Is this how legends are born?

http://www.edendale.co.uk/ANW/WFD.G2.5.html

And here http://www.ipernity.com/doc/302581/37892804

My conclusions are “let the buyer beware”.

I have found no evidence that the “sale” hangar was at Alexandra Park.
The “sale” hanger did not appear on site until some time between 1932 and 1938 so at least 8 years after Avro set up shop here.
The “sale” hanger together with the other sheds, originally with it, look more like stores or workshops or possible connected with a flying club. The Lancashire Aero Club’s website claims that it had to move out of Woodford at the start of WWII so would have been on site when the “sale” hangar and other sheds were erected.

This from the Avro Heritage Museum website. ” The Lancashire Aero Club also used the aerodrome briefly in the 1920s until moving to the new Barton Aerodrome and used a converted farm building as a club house and a “Dutch barn” style steel-framed hangar built for A V Roe around 1927.”

http://avroheritagemuseum.co.uk/avro-heritage/sites/woodford/

It appears that any provenance is rapidly evaporating. Maybe Avro Heritage knew it was just some old shed that had the Avro logo painted on the front for aesthetic reasons.

With the requirement for the airfield at Alexandra Park to be closed and the buildings to be removed, Avro sought a new location for an airfield and bought New Hall Farm in 1924.

The farm looked like this in 1907.

NEW HALL FARM 1907 OS XXVIII.NE. MU
Image via National Library of Scotland.

Note the existing farm building A and the location point B.

I understand that the first hangers were Bessonneau hangars, does the following image taken in 1925 show such a hangar?

WOODFORD SEP 1925 INAUGURATION LAC

Yes indeed the Britain from Above does have many good views of Woodford with the latest pictures dated 1932.

EPW038559

In this view is a single Belfast hangar did this come from Alexandra Park?

However, the hangar for sale was not built in 1932 and does therefore not appear in any pictures of that date.

What has been mistaken for the hangars is in fact a wall-less barn! as seen below top left of picture.

first air pageant woodford SEP 1926

In the following picture taken in 1932 the barn is labelled and the location for the sale hangars is empty.

JUN 1932 EPW038560 MU

Two days to go & still no one willing to post the £70,000 minimum bid. I think they’re going to have to be a lot more realistic about a 40ft Conex full of scrap metal 😉

That’s almost $95,000. I can buy five new ones that size here for the same price…
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Steel-Building-40×60-SIMPSON-Metal-Building-Kit-Garage-Workshop-Prefab-Building-/132574556420?_trksid=p2385738.m4383.l4275.c10

or one 5x bigger.

Starting with Alexandra Park airfield. This airfield was not actually in the park of that name but located a little to the south in Hough End fields. The hangars and buildings were located in the area which carries the label “The Hough End Centre”. Note on the present map the distinctive nature of the “Southern Cemetery” to the south of the airfield.

ALEXANDRA PARK AIRFIELD LOCATION 2018
Image Google maps.

From Britain from Above EPW017389 (part of) dated 1927.

ALEXANDRA PARK AIRFIELD OLD MARK UP

Now taking a closer look at the Belfast Truss hangars at Alaxandra Park.

Alexandra_Park_Aerodrome_1923

ALEXANDRA PARK AERODROME

In these and other pictures there is no sign of the “Avro Hangers”. By 1930 all airfield buildings had been cleared and and the site used for the Royal Lancashire Agricultural Show.

EPW032558 MARK UP 1930

Turns out the vertical RSJ’s were embedded in the concrete & gas-axed off, so will have to have plates welded to the bottom & bolted to a new slab.

There are some interesting photos of Woodford airfield in 1927 and 1932 to be found on the ‘Britain from above’ website with the buildings in question visible (they are not the large hangar).
https://britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EPW038561

Woodford was another item on my bucket list that fell through the hole in my bucket before I got there!

I have done some research on the early airfield in connection with the thread about the Tudor crash which took the lives of so many important people in Avro.

I have read elsewhere that when Avro bought the farm in 1924, on which the airfield was to be situated, it brought one of the hangers from Alexander(sic) Park and the “hanger” in question was not it and no such hanger was in place in 1932. I would suggest that, probably, the only connection this hanger has with Avro is that it was on an Avro airfield and somebody painted Avro on it. As already stated the hanger is small and smaller than any other hanger I have seen Avro using. Again as already stated I would suggest that this hanger was used by club fliers as a work shop. Obviously The Lancashire Aero Club comes to mind but possible Avro ran a flying club here also.

The Lancashire Aero Club no longer operates from Barton, but from a controversial strip at Kenyon Hall Farm.

I will post further evidence to support my conclusions and would be very happy to be put right if anything I have stated is wrong.

The only gliders I’ve manhandled were constructed from paper & flown across classrooms when the teacher wasn’t looking. How many gliders & Moths did Avro produce? 😉

Not a problem for dh60 Moths and similar vintage aircraft with wing fold, and you’ve obviously never manhandled a glider out of a hangar.

Apparently they were never used as hangars. The doors only open to half-span which is a bit daft if you’re trying to put an aircraft inside.

It would be appropriate if the hangars found a home at Barton and got used (again) by the Lancashire Aero Club.

I don’t think Duxford would be ideal at all. These are not from a inter-war / WW2 airfield and would be quite out of place there. Somewhere like OW would be far better.

An ideal location would be on the site of the blown up ones at Duxford. try telling that to the goons who think that an empty airfield is a good idea, and that wish to bulldoze the Land Warfare Hall!

Five days to the auction & no bids, it doesn’t look like they’re going any place yet. At least the building is safe inside the Conex & not going to be bulldozed flat.

Ahem! To return to the original thread; the Avro hangars, or sheds, were at Woodford until last year. It would be nice, but they’re not likely to be going back there any time soon.

Anon.

Although not Hangars, some of the other airfield buildings that have survived and are probably being restored. These images were taken three or four years ago and may have changed considerably since taken.