Somewhere in southern England?

The film was shown again on television this morning. It was the first time that I’d seen it. It contains additional sequences featuring the Avian. Most of those are of it in flight but there is one which, it appears, was shot in the studio. So was the Avian hauled into Twickenham Studios or did the studio manufacture a cockpit stage for the shot or was it shot at Hanworth with a real aeroplane?

Thanks, avion ancien, I’d forgotten about that thread, let alone that I made a small contribution. I checked back and post #19 had a link to a Coley’s advert with some of its locations mention. The one I was trying to identify was at Mill Farm, Hanworth Road, Hounslow, though I thought of it as Hounslow Road. Looking at a fairly recent street map, it seems that the A314 is called Hounslow Road as far as River Crane, where there is a local authority boundary change. Thereafter, it is called Hanworth Road – which is all quite logical, I guess.

Looking at the same advertisement, it mentions a location in Chertsey, giving the street as Nead Lane. I’m pretty certain that this should read Mead Lane. My mother now lives just off Mead Lane and, for quite a few years after she moved there, there was a scrap yard just the other side of the footpath at the bottom of her garden. You couldn’t see in but I don’t recall mention of any aircraft there. The site is now occupied by flats.

My father, now long dead, used to work in Feltham close to Hanworth Air Park. He went to work at EMI, somewhere down Victoria Road, off Feltham High Street. I’m not sure but I have the faintest of recollections that he might have worked for the General Aircraft Company, close by there, for a short while before that. He had been in the REME in WWII based in Shropshire, possibly near Wem, repairing some kind of equipment for aircraft, I seem to recall, possibly for bomb aimers. Does that seem right? Can anyone confirm my recall on this?

Ian, take a look at post #56 of the thread at http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?119826-Coley-s-scrapyard/page2. It ties in neatly with your recollections!

I only pop in here occasionally but, as soon as I saw the screen grabs at the start of this thread, my “gut” said Hanworth Air Park but without any evidence, so I’m delighted that the detectives here have done their stuff so effectively.

I used to live not far from Hanworth Air Park. Please bear with me here as there will be a couple of aviation links, albeit a touch tenuous perhaps. If you look at the map that buccaneer66 posted, I used to cycle to school in my teens from the right-hand road in the “vee” at the top (Harlington Road East), bearing left along Uxbridge Road to the crossroads on the right of the map, where I turned right and cycled down Hounslow Road, crossing the bridge over the Longford River. This was at a time when Hanworth Park was no longer an airfield, though I did see the occasional Aston Martin out on test.

The two “vague-ish” aviation connections:

1) At the “vee” (in the sector where there is the most acute angle), there was a pub called “The Airman” and “streetview” shows it’s still there – a faint vestige of the past.
2) If, instead of turning right at the crossroads on the right-hand side of the map, one turned left, it was along this part of Hounslow Road on which, if memory serves, the “infamous”(?) R J Coley scrapyard was to be found.

In the early 1960s, there was a rumour that a small aircraft was still based at Hanworth Air Park. I never saw it but a Pou du Ciel is what keeps popping into my mind though I don’t think it was one of those.

Great detective work….!

Once again many thanks to all involved. Sorry, but I don’t have any other mysteries at the moment but I certainly know where to post them when the next one crops up.

Amazing. I love these detective work threads, I only wish I could help with more of them!

Adrian

….. and the next one please!

Well, that’s this conundrum resolved. What’s next?

Oh you are a clever lad – must have plenty of time on your hands

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Hanworth stable block is centre left in this photo. Exchange and Mart hangar is the left hand one behind Hanworth House.

Or how about period pictures of Hanworth Air Park-

http://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/image/epw036243?search=Hanworth%20park&ref=33&quicktabs_image=0#quicktabs-image

You can make out the “stable” buildings and fuel pumps right hand edge roughly in the middle.

Jon

I wonder, matheson, what are the buildings on the extreme right of the aerial photograph showing the Aircraft Exchange & Mart and Cierva hangars? Maybe a large scale OS map of the site in the thirties would shed more light on this?

Does this help?

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Thanks to everyone. avion ancien your suggestion of the London Air Park sent me online where I found this photograph:-

The writing on the hunger reminded me of something else which was in the film:-

When I watched the film I was certain that the top word was ‘Aircraft’ but I couldn’t make the rest out. However I’m now pretty certain that the end on the lower line must read ‘Mart Ltd’. Unfortunately the outbuildings are not in that photograph and they don’t appear to exist in present-day views of Hanworth Park. With all that said I think it must be London Air Park in the film.

This one’s nagging at me. The pumps look very much country motor garage rather than aerodrome. So maybe I’m barking up the wrong tree in thinking that this part of ‘The Last Journey’ was filmed on an aerodrome. But if it was not filmed on an aerodrome, identifying the location will be an almost impossible task – unless there’s a forum member with an encyclopaedic knowledge of the outbuildings of stately homes in England which were extant in the thirties! What is the context of this sequence to the film, matheson?

…as mentioned in #2 and #5 – but interesting dates:
Registered [CofR 5983] 24.6.35 to Malcolm & Farquharson Ltd., Heston airport
G-AAAT, Crashed at Cheltenham, Gloucestershire 21.9.35; presumably damaged beyond repair, as CofA lapsed 28.9.35. Registration cancelled 31.3.36.
The Last Journey (1935) – released 1936

Martin

Just a thought. It appears that G-AAAT was based at Heston in 1935. But the buildings shown in the film stills don’t look like any of those at Heston. But it’s no great distance from there to Hanworth. The buildings in the stills look like a Georgian stable block. Furthermore they are surrounded by trees. Thus might they be associated with Hanworth Park House? And if so, might that segment of ‘The Last Journey’ have been filmed at the London Air Park? Both Heston and Hanworth aerodromes are no great distance from Twickenham. Furthermore the GWR Paddington to Bristol line in conveniently close to them as well.

Wikipedia says the film was made at Twickenham, and was a ‘Quota Quickie’ (look that up here if you’re interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinematograph_Films_Act_1927). Basically, a cheap and quick production, so they’d have been unlikely to go far from the studio for any location. This film does involve the GWR too, which complicates things a bit. However there would have been a number of aircraft-friendly sites in the vicinity.

For me there’s something about that building that looks familiar, but I can’t place it. May be because of many years working at and around Heathrow, or perhaps I’ve just watched more Midsommer Murders than is good for me…

For those with more time to spend on the search who haven’t spotted it before, I’ve found this site very useful:
http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/sidebyside.cfm#zoom=14&lat=51.4550&lon=-0.3804&layers=10&right=BingHyb

Blimey, not a lot of clues! The building might be a Georgian house with stables attached (look at the row of tall blocked doorways in the last pic), beyond hat I haven’t a clue.

Adrian

No idea of the location …but the aircraft is possibly Avro Avian IV C/N 172 scapped Sep 1936.
Just fill up and taxi around the parked cars. Those were the days.

Regards Mike