Charlton was the name of a small village or large hamlet in present-day

South Gloucestershire South Gloucestershire is a unitary authority area in the ceremonial county of Gloucestershire, South West England. Towns in the area include Yate, Chipping Sodbury, Kingswood, Thornbury, Filton, Patchway and Bradley Stoke. The southern p ...

, England with a Bethel Chapel and Sunday School. It was demolished in the late 1940s. Its site is (in 2020) occupied by part of the derelict runway and safety margins of the former

Bristol Filton Airport Filton Airport or Filton Aerodrome was a private airport in Filton and Patchway, within South Gloucestershire, north of Bristol, England. Description The airfield was bounded by the A38 road to the east, and the Henbury Loop Line, former ...

. The village was located between Filton and what is today the

Cribbs Causeway Cribbs Causeway is both a road in South Gloucestershire, England, running north of the city of Bristol, and the adjacent area which is notable for its Out-of-town shopping centres in the United Kingdom, out-of-town shopping and leisure facilitie ...

out-of-town commercial and retail area immediately north of

Bristol Bristol () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, the most populous city in the region. Built around the River Avon, Bristol, River Avon, it is bordered by t ...

. To the north of the village lay fields and Over Court Deer Park, which is today Bristol Golf Club.

History

Charlton was a tything in the ancient parish, and later

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

, of Henbury which still ecclesiastically covers more than . In 1870 Charlton had a population of 425, living in 88 houses. From 1910 to 1915 the place was served by Charlton Halt, on the Henbury Loop railway just south of the village. In 1935 the civil parish of Henbury was abolished, and Charlton was transferred to the civil parish of

Almondsbury Almondsbury () is a large village and civil parish in South Gloucestershire, England. It is situated on the A38 road in the Avon Green Belt north of Bristol city centre. It is adjacent to junction 16 of the M5 motorway and Almondsbury Interc ...

. The B4057 road ran through the village. Charlton had farm houses, a public house called the Carpenters Arms, a post office, large houses and a few cottages. In the late 1940s most of the village was demolished to make way for an extension of the main runway at Filton Airfield to accommodate the take-off and landing requirements of the Bristol Brabazon propeller-driven airliner. Through compulsory purchase, the government offered residents a market price for their homes and offered rehousing in council housing in

Patchway Patchway is a town and civil parish in South Gloucestershire, England, situated north-north west of central Bristol. The town has become an overflow settlement for Bristol and is contiguous with Bristol's urban area, along with the nearby towns ...

, which many took up to retain community links.

Subsequent use of the site

Filton Airfield, later

, operated until the end of 2012. Although the Brabazon project was cancelled in 1953, the extended runway allowed Britannia production at Filton, Vulcan

V bomber The "V bombers" were the Royal Air Force (RAF) aircraft during the 1950s and 1960s that comprised the Nuclear weapons and the United Kingdom, United Kingdom's strategic nuclear strike force known officially as the V force or Bomber Command Mai ...

s to be dispersed to Filton during the

Cuban Missile Crisis The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis () in Cuba, or the Caribbean Crisis (), was a 13-day confrontation between the governments of the United States and the Soviet Union, when American deployments of Nuclear weapons d ...

and

Concorde Concorde () is a retired Anglo-French supersonic airliner jointly developed and manufactured by Sud Aviation and the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC). Studies started in 1954, and France and the United Kingdom signed a treaty establishin ...

supersonic airliners to take off after being assembled at Filton. It also enabled flight testing from the Bristol Siddeley and Rolls-Royce flight-test centres. It allowed major overhaul and conversion programmes to be done at Filton on

General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark The General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark is a retired supersonic, medium-range, multirole combat aircraft. Production models of the F-111 had roles that included attack (e.g. interdiction), strategic bombing (including nuclear weapons capabiliti ...

and Vickers VC10 aircraft. A mixed use development, to be known as New Charlton, has been proposed between

and Cribbs Causeway, on the site of the runway extension over the village.

Survival of the name

The name survives in Charlton Common – a public recreation area, to the south of the original settlement – Charlton Road, which led from Passage Road, Westbury on Trym, to the village, and Charlton Lane, which led from Henbury and Brentry. In the 1970s the name was resurrected for the new development of Charlton Mead, on the south side of Filton Airfield near Southmead, and in 2009 it was used again for the new development of Charlton Hayes, on the north side of Filton Airfield at

References

External links

*
Google Earth view of Bristol Filton Airport and the site of CharltonCloser Google Earth view of the site of Charlton
(north of "Charlton Common") {{South Gloucestershire Villages in South Gloucestershire District Former populated places in Gloucestershire Populated places demolished to make room for airports Forcibly depopulated communities in the United Kingdom

History

Subsequent use of the site

Survival of the name

See also

References

External links