The Memorial to the Home of Aviation is a stone memorial sculpture at
Eastchurch
Eastchurch is a village and civil parish on the Isle of Sheppey, in the English county of Kent, two miles east of Minster. The village website claims the area has "a history steeped in stories of piracy and smugglers".
Aviation history
Eastch ...
, on the
Isle of Sheppey
The Isle of Sheppey is an island off the northern coast of Kent, England, neighbouring the Thames Estuary, centred from central London. It has an area of . The island forms part of the local government district of Swale. ''Sheppey'' is derive ...
in the
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
county of
Kent
Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...
. The
Grade II* listed memorial, unveiled in 1955, commemorates the early aviation flights from
Leysdown and
Eastchurch
Eastchurch is a village and civil parish on the Isle of Sheppey, in the English county of Kent, two miles east of Minster. The village website claims the area has "a history steeped in stories of piracy and smugglers".
Aviation history
Eastch ...
by members of the club that became the
Royal Aero Club
The Royal Aero Club (RAeC) is the national co-ordinating body for air sport in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1901 as the Aero Club of Great Britain, being granted the title of the "Royal Aero Club" in 1910.
History
The Aero Club was foun ...
of Great Britain in 1910, and the air base established by the
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...
near Eastchurch in 1911.
Background
The Aero Club established a flying ground at Leysdown in 1909, with its clubhouse at
Mussel Manor, near sheds where the
Short Brothers
Short Brothers plc, usually referred to as Shorts or Short, is an aerospace company based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Shorts was founded in 1908 in London, and was the first company in the world to make production aeroplanes. It was particu ...
assembled licensed versions of the
Wright Flyer
The ''Wright Flyer'' (also known as the ''Kitty Hawk'', ''Flyer'' I or the 1903 ''Flyer'') made the first sustained flight by a manned heavier-than-air powered and controlled aircraft—an airplane—on December 17, 1903. Invented and flown b ...
. The Short Brothers factory moved to a better site at
Standford Hill, south of Eastchurch, in 1910, where its Grade II listed sheds survive. The Aero Club moved to Stonepitts Farm near Eastchurch, and the
Admiralty
Admiralty most often refers to:
*Admiralty, Hong Kong
*Admiralty (United Kingdom), military department in command of the Royal Navy from 1707 to 1964
*The rank of admiral
*Admiralty law
Admiralty can also refer to:
Buildings
* Admiralty, Traf ...
established a Royal Navy flying school at the Eastchurch flying ground in 1911, which became the headquarters of the Naval Wing of the newly-established
Royal Flying Corps in 1912, and then the location of a
Royal Naval Air Service station in 1914, and later
RAF Eastchurch
Royal Air Force Eastchurch or more simply RAF Eastchurch (formerly RNAS Eastchurch) is a former Royal Air Force station near Eastchurch village, on the Isle of Sheppey, Kent, England. The history of aviation at Eastchurch stretches back to the fi ...
. The Stonepitts site is now used as an
open prison
An open prison (open jail) is any jail in which the prisoners are trusted to complete sentences with minimal supervision and perimeter security and are often not locked up in their prison cells. Prisoners may be permitted to take up employment w ...
,
HM Prison Standford Hill
HM Prison Standford Hill (Sheppey Cluster) is a Category D men's prison, located close to the village of Eastchurch on the Isle of Sheppey, Kent. Standford Hill forms part of the Sheppey prisons cluster, which also includes HMP Elmley and HMP Sw ...
.
There were moves to commemorate the historic importance of the site in the late 1940s and 1950s. A public meeting in late 1949 called for a museum or library in an extension to the Eastchurch village hall, and a letter was published by ''The Times'' on 11 February 1950, signed by
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from ...
,
Lord Brabazon of Tara, and
Hugh Oswald Short, appealing for public support.
The memorial was erected on the west side of Church Road in Eastchurch, at its junction with High Street, opposite the Grade I listed
All Saints' Church, Eastchurch. One of the roads leads towards Leysdown and the other towards
Eastchurch Aerodrome. It was unveiled on 25 July 1955 by
Lord Tedder, former
Chief of the Air Staff. It was rededicated fifty years later, in 2005. It was
listed
Listed may refer to:
* Listed, Bornholm, a fishing village on the Danish island of Bornholm
* Listed (MMM program), a television show on MuchMoreMusic
* Endangered species in biology
* Listed building, in architecture, designation of a historicall ...
at Grade II in 1978, and upgraded to Grade II* in 2018 at the 100th anniversary of the founding of the
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...
.
Description
The memorial was designed by the Kent county architect
Sidney Loweth and comprises a curtain wall facing to the east faced with
Portland stone, bearing allegorical sculptures and an frieze of early aircraft, sculpted by
Hilary Stratton. It was constructed by G.E. Wallis and Sons of Maidstone (who in earlier years had constructed the
Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment Cenotaph in Maidstone, and the
Royal Berkshire Regiment War Memorial
The Royal Berkshire Regiment War Memorial or Royal Berkshire Regiment Cenotaph is a World War I memorials, First World War memorial dedicated to members of the Royal Berkshire Regiment and located in Brock Barracks in Reading, Berkshire, Reading, ...
in Reading). The upper white Portland stone panels of the memorial are support by lower walls of
Kentish ragstone with integral wooden seating, and the area below is paved with flint cobbles. Beneath the central plinth is an area covered with blue glass setts.
The memorial has a central plinth with a bust of
Zeus
Zeus or , , ; grc, Δῐός, ''Diós'', label= genitive Boeotian Aeolic and Laconian grc-dor, Δεύς, Deús ; grc, Δέος, ''Déos'', label= genitive el, Δίας, ''Días'' () is the sky and thunder god in ancient Greek reli ...
, flanked by walls to either side bearing relief scriptures of aircraft from 1909 to 1911, each wall ending with a stone pier. From above, the walls resemble the curved camber of an aeroplane wing. The wall to the south is curved, and maintains the same height out to the pier, which is topped by globe. Carved stone panels on the south wall depict an
Avro Triplane,
Cody 1,
De Havilland Biplane No. 1
__NOTOC__
De Havilland Biplane No. 1 is a name applied retrospectively to the first aircraft constructed by Geoffrey de Havilland, who built and flew it once in December 1909. De Havilland undertook the project with the assistance of his frien ...
,
Howard Wright 1909 Biplane,
Dunne D.5,
Bristol Monoplane,
Handley Page Type E, and a
Sopwith-Wright biplane. The central plinth is carved to depict a
Short Flying Boat which seems to be landing on the blue glass setts below. The wall to the north is straight but steps down to a pier topped by a bust of an aviator. The wall bears stone panels depicting a
Short biplane, a
Short Type 184
The Short Admiralty Type 184, often called the Short 225 after the power rating of the engine first fitted, was a British two-seat reconnaissance, bombing and torpedo carrying folding-wing seaplane designed by Horace Short of Short Brothers. It ...
seaplane,
Short Twin,
Short S.38,
Short S.27, the
Short Biplane No.2, and
Short Biplane No.1.
An inscription on the central plinth reads: "THIS MEMORIAL / COMMEMORATES / THE FIRST HOME OF / BRITISH AVIATION / 1909 / NEAR THIS SPOT AT / LEYSDOWN EASTCHURCH / (MUSSEL MANOR) (STONEPITTS FARM) / FLIGHTS AND EXPERIMENTS WERE / MADE BY MEMBERS OF THE AERO / CLUB (LATER ROYAL) OF GREAT BRITAIN / ALSO THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE / FIRST AIRCRAFT FACTORY IN GREAT / BRITAIN BY SHORT BROTHERS 1909 / AND THE FORMATION OF THE FIRST / ROYAL NAVAL AIR SERVICE STATION / 1911".
Other inscriptions identify the aircraft depicted, list names of early aviators (including
John Moore-Brabazon
Lieutenant-Colonel John Theodore Cuthbert Moore-Brabazon, 1st Baron Brabazon of Tara, , HonFRPS (8 February 1884 – 17 May 1964), was an English aviation pioneer and Conservative politician. He was the first Englishman to pilot a heavier-than ...
,
Charles Rolls
Charles Stewart Rolls (27 August 1877 – 12 July 1910) was a British motoring and aviation pioneer. With Henry Royce, he co-founded the Rolls-Royce car manufacturing firm. He was the first Briton to be killed in an aeronautical accident wit ...
,
Frank McClean (who granted a lease of the Eastchurch site to the Aero Club),
A. K. Huntington,
J. W. Dunne,
Maurice Egerton,
T. O. M. Sopwith,
Cecil Grace
Cecil Stanley Grace (1880 – 22 December 1910) was a pioneer aviator who went missing on a flight across the English Channel in 1910.
Family
Grace was born in Chile, the son of John William Grace of New York. His uncle was W. R. Grace, a ...
,
Alec Ogilvie
''For the businessman, see Alec Ogilvie (businessman).''
Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander "Alec" Ogilvie CBE (8 June 1882 – 18 June 1962) was an early British aviation pioneer, a friend of the Wright Brothers and only the seventh British person ...
,
Percy Grace,
Ernest Pitman,
G. P. L. Jezzi, and
James Travers) and early aircraft designers and engineers (including
Horace Short,
Eustace Short,
Oswald Short
Hugh Oswald Short, AFRAeS (16 January 1883 – 4 December 1969) was an English aeronautical engineer.
Early life
Oswald Short was born at Stanton by Dale, Ilkeston, Derbyshire, the son of mining engineer Samuel Short and his second wife Emma R ...
, and the first four pilots of the Royal Naval Air Service:
Charles Rumney Samson
Air Commodore Charles Rumney Samson, (8 July 1883 – 5 February 1931) was a British naval aviation pioneer. He was one of the first four officers selected for pilot training by the Royal Navy and was the first person to fly an aircraft fr ...
,
Arthur Longmore
Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Murray Longmore, (8 October 1885 – 10 December 1970) was an early naval aviator, before reaching high rank in the Royal Air Force. He was Commander-in-Chief of the RAF's Middle East Command from 1940 to 1941.
E ...
, and
Reginald Gregory RN, and
Eugene Gerrard
Air Commodore Eugene Louis Gerrard, (14 July 1881 – 7 February 1963) was an officer in the Royal Marines and Royal Air Force.
Gerrard was commissioned into the Royal Marine Light Infantry in 1900 and served on , , , , and .
In 1911, Gerrard ...
RMLI.
See also
*
Grade II* listed war memorials in England
There are 137 Grade II* listed war memorials in England, out of over 4,000 listed war memorials. In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a building or structure of special historical or architectural importance; listing offers the building ...
*
Grade II* listed buildings in Kent
The county of Kent is divided into 13 districts. The districts of Kent are Ashford, Canterbury, Dartford, Dover, Folkestone and Hythe, Gravesham, Maidstone, Medway, Tonbridge and Malling, Tunbridge Wells, Sevenoaks, Swale and Thanet.
As the ...
Sources
*
*
*
Aircraft monument, Eastchurch geograph.org.uk
*
*
{{coord, 51.40662, 0.85746, format=dms, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title
Aviation history of the United Kingdom
Grade II* listed buildings in Kent
Grade II* listed monuments and memorials
Monuments and memorials in Kent
Isle of Sheppey
Buildings and structures completed in 1955
1955 establishments in England