Category:Shoreham Airport
Shoreham Airport coordinates: 50.833586360795834, -0.29060187963930423
Shoreham Aerodrome (later Shoreham Airport, and currently Brighton City Airport) started out as a flat grassed area suitable for aircraft, and became officially licensed in 1910. It claims to be the “oldest continuously licensed airport in the UK” and is also said to be the World’s oldest commercial custom-built airport still in operation.
1930 commentary
SLIPSTREAMS
Old-Timers
It would be interesting to know, by the way, at what date the last of the real old-timers (exclusive of the Avro 504 of course), was flown in this country. I am ready to wager that it was some four years ago, the pilot being Pashley of the Gnat Aero Co., the machine, an old Grahame-White box-kite with 50 h.p. Gnome engine and the place, Shoreham aerodrome. I saw the machine when I was down there in 1925 and Pashley himself recounted to me, with great glee, how, a short time before my visit, he had sizzled round the precincts of the aerodrome in the venerable G.-W., much to the consternation of the Shoreham residents who must surely have thought they were seeing a ghost. That flight proved to be its last, for shortly afterwards it was partially demolished while resting peacefully in a field, by a herd of hostile and hungry cows.
— , "RUDDER-BAR", , "Motor Sport" magazine, , January 1930
Architecture
Shoreham is notable today for the lovely art deco (“streamline moderne”) Grade II* listed terminal building by R. Stavers Hessell Tiltman (1888-1968) and the associated hangar. The terminal building was opened on 13th June 1936 as “Brighton Hove and Worthing Joint Municipal Airport “.
The fact that Shoreham doesn’t have a major rail link has meant that the subsequent massive expansion in holiday air travel in the 1960s and beyond tended to be mopped up by Heathrow (which has a Piccadilly Line underground line terminus loop), and by Gatwick (which is on the main London-Brighton line). As a result, Shoreham’s pretty art deco terminal has avoided being overrun by larger modern buildings, and is pretty much unspoiled, to the extent that it is regularly used as a period location for films and television.
Modelling
Although Shoreham terminal building is compact and self-contained, and hasn't changed much since it was opened in 1936, we're not aware of any commercial models of it. When it opened, Skybirds had already modelled the art deco building at Brooklands, and the Shoreham upgrade would probably have been eclipsed by the opening of the magnificent circular art deco terminus at Gatwick, which also happened in 1936,, and which Skybirds modelled.
External links
- Brighton City Airport, Homepage (flybrighton.com)
- Brighton City Airport (Shoreham) Heritage Assessment, March 2016 (adur-worthing.gov.uk)
- Glamour from Aviation’s Early Years (Shoreham Airport Terminal, West Sussex, UK) (thebeautyoftransport.com)
- Historic England Research Records: Shoreham Airport (heritagegateway.org.uk)
- Brighton City Airport, Shoreham-by-Sea, England. This tiny 1930s Art Deco airport is a beautiful remnant of a bygone era. (atlasobscura.com)
- Shoreham - Britain's oldest airport (bitesizedbritain.co.uk)
- Harold Hume Piffard (shorehambysea.com)
- Shoreham Airport (brighton-hove.gov.uk)
english heritage listings
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