London Airport in the 1950s

A guide book to spotting at Heathrow, mid-fifties contains this illustration of what I think was the little cafe on the north of the Bath Road opposite the LAP North terminal and airline offices …[ATTACH=JSON]{“alt”:”Click image for larger version Name:tAirport-Cafe-1957ih.jpg Views:t1 Size:t208.4 KB ID:t3844099″,”data-align”:”none”,”data-attachmentid”:”3844099″,”data-size”:”full”}[/ATTACH]

West African Airways Corporation WAAC Boeing 377-10-32 Stratocruiser probably r/n G-AKGI c/n 15975 taxiing away from the terminal at London Airport circa 1958.

I have a number of books about, or incorporating information about, stone circles. None of them include any stone circles in S.E. England. There is evidence of circles, or henges, in S.E. England but not stone circles.

I found the link provided by longshot very interesting (the person referring to Debenham’s in Chertsey must surely be thinking of Staines).

There was evidence of an ancient site now under the north runway. It was (erroneously) called Caesar’s Camp or Roman Camp at one time and also something like Shapsbury Hill. It was an earthwork enclosure just north of General Roy’s baseline, not far from the Heathrow end of it. That was subsumed when London Airport opened.

The demolition of Heathrow and Heston’s ‘neighbour’, the Southall Gasholder has been planned for some time ( http://southallwatersidecommunity.com/about/ ) but I can’t find much on the net about it. Northolt’s Gas-holder went some years ago ,I believe.

Top section already gone in past week or so, they are now down to the top of the ‘LH’. By next weekend the ‘LH’ will be gone forever.

The Northolt (South Harrow to be more accurate) gasholder and gas works was all demolished back in the mid 1980’s.

The demolition of Heathrow and Heston’s ‘neighbour’, the Southall Gasholder has been planned for some time ( http://southallwatersidecommunity.com/about/ ) but I can’t find much on the net about it. Northolt’s Gas-holder went some years ago ,I believe.

De-icing 1950s-style:

Loading a Connie on Northside:

Just noticed that they have started to demolish the old Southall gasometer.

My PC has sprung back into life (but for how long?). It gives me a chance to ask if anyone knows the name of the newspaper which carried a regular “AIRPORT NEWS” column. In 1965, it was written by Tony Adams, as shown below. The “NOT SURE” in the file name is because I don’t know the original source.

I got this through a music trade publicist who subscribed to a press cuttings agency but I failed to note the name of the publication from which it was extracted. Does anyone know and, if so, could they please let me know?

“Airport News” was over two columns but, in the image below, I show just the headline that week and two items that may be of interest here, not the whole column.

My apologies if this link has been posted before …there is a 9 minute film on the construction and opening of Heathrow.
https://archive.org/details/london_airport_TNA

Put Heathrow in the search box on http://www.megalithic.co.uk/search.php for an account of the archaeological dig just before T5 was built…settlements not stone circle though

Many years prior to there being any aviation activities in the area, there is a story of an ancient stone circle which was later removed to build the airport… any pics of that?

:eagerness:

Didn’t look that far beyond current LHR boundary….. no wonder I didn’t recognise it, as that’s some loose description given the location, or the bloke taking the photo was pretty poor at map reading/recognition 😀

I got my bearings now…it’s looking NNW over the Western end of the Colnbrook bypass (and the aircraft is roughly following the GWR Staines-Uxbridge branch-line northwards i.e close to T5 now). Langley airfield is hidden behind the aircraft’s engine. The building cluster by the engine is the Brands Hill Hostel (what was that for?). The road off to bottom left is the windy road from Colnbrook to Horton and Wraysbury. The original western end of Heathrow’s runway 10L (now 09L) is ‘off-piste’ about 1-1.5 miles from the bottom right of the photo, zoom in on http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/side-by-side/#zoom=14&lat=51.4962&lon=-0.5277&layers=11&right=12

Thanks but I found the location.
The photo was taken 1950 and its over Brands Hill and Colnbrook.

What’s the source of the photo? It’s flat and there’s a gravel pit or watermeadow on the right, but I don’t recognize the buildings

So where is it ???
Should not be to hard to identify?

Hmmm…………that’s not an aerial photo of anywhere near the current Heathrow?

Here’s something I came across.
It says ” an aerial view of the future London airport “

Currently without PC access and using a ‘borrowed’ i-pad.

The OS map showing General Roy’s ‘baseline’ was most interesting to see. The Heathrow end is relatively close to the location of the Three Magpies pub; I always thought it was closer to Harlington Corner. The other end of the line is in a street which I recall as Roy Grove. I used to walk along that very street every school day morning for a couple of years or so in my youth.

The line runs very close to where I lived in the years when I became interested in aviation and visited LAP so much. If you look in the bottom right-hand corner of the map, my home was just above the ‘ham’ of ‘Feltham’. Across the river to the east was the southwestern edge of what was left of Hounslow Heath (visible from my bedroom window, from which I could see aircraft coming in on what was then 28L). The straight right-angled lines on the map mark, very roughly, the boundary of the Hounslow Heath aerodrome from which the first international service operated roughly 100 years ago.

Just off the map, in the bottom right-hand corner (just below the red ‘X’ of roads), is the location of Hanworth Air Park, noted in the 1930s as the base of the National Flying Clubs (I think the name was something like that), site of the Zeppelin visit(s) to London (which brought huge crowds to the airfield) and adjacent to the factory of the General Aircraft Company in Feltham.

There wil be other claimants, I’m sure, but this little patch of West London can surely make a case as the ‘home’ of aviation development in Britain.