80 years ago: The Opening of Heathrow airport

Lord Winster opening Heathrow Airport.
(Halifax Evening Courier - Tuesday 1 January 1946)

       On a bright, dry, frosty morning, on a windswept expanse of concrete, a man in homburg hat, made a speech in front of a Lancastrian Starlight airliner. He was Lord Winster, the Minister for Civil Aviation, and he was there, on 1 January 1946, to mark the inaugural flight from the £20million new airport that was being built in West London. Lord Winster told the dignitaries that Heath Row would be the future civil airport of London and it already had the finest runway in the world, “This flight is the first step towards the establishment of swift and regular British air services to South America. Air Vice-Marshal Donald Bennett and all those flying with him today are truly ambassadors representing the spirit and determination of Britain to play the same leading part in the air as it always has at sea.”[1] The aeroplane, piloted by the Air Vice-Marshal had a crew of six, including Mary Sylvia Guthrie, 24-year-old ex-pilot of the British Air Transport Auxiliary, as the first air hostess.[2] It was flying via Lisbon, Bathurst, Natal (Brazil), Rio de Janerio and Monte Video. The aircraft took off on the 3000 yard runway, but only needed 1000 yards before it was airborne. It was also the day that the airport, built on land requisition by the Air Ministry for wartime use, was officially handed over to the Ministry of Civil Aviation. It had never been used by the R.A.F. although the runways had been built in the triangular pattern favoured by the R.A.F. It was soon pointed out by Airline officials that 100-ton airliners would not be able to use the airport with this runway configuration if the wind was north or south. The current arrangement would only be suitable for small aircraft which can land in a cross-wind.[3]

[1] Halifax Evening Courier - Tuesday 01 January 1946

[2] Illustrated London News - Saturday 12 January 1946

[3] Daily Express - Wednesday 02 January 1946

Airport runways under construction.
(The Sphere - Saturday 25 May 1946)

      On 25 March 1946, Lord Winster took a party of M.P.s, Peers, the Press, and Foreign attaches, to Heath Row to show them the facilities. At luncheon he announced that the airport would, from now on, be called the “London Airport”, as it was considered that the name “Heathrow” would be “a difficult word for many foreigners”.[1] This decision was reversed in 1966. He said that when the airport is in full service it would be able to deal with 160 aircraft an hour in good weather. The first three runways would be completed by summer and when finished the airport would be one of the largest and best equipped in the world. He went on to say that London Airport is the greatest engineering enterprise ever undertaken, and although the buildings do not afford the entry into the United Kingdom that we should like, they will improve as time goes on.[2] Work had already started on acquiring land for extending the airport to the north of the Bath Road which would involve the destruction of Sipson and Harlington villages, although, he said, work on building these three new runways would not begin until after 1950 and no demolition will take place before then.[3] This expansion plan was dropped because of cost, but the spectre of airport expansion has hung over the residents ever since.

      The airport was far from finished. After eighteen months of construction there was only one completed 3000 yard runway. At this time two million tons of earth had been excavated; 36,000 feet of ducting containing 60 miles of wire laid; 200 lorries, 40 excavators, 50 bulldozers used, as well as elaborate concreting equipment. More than 1000 men were housed and fed on the site.[4] However apart from the runways little else was ready.

      One of the first casualties of this “modern” airport was the “Fido” installation at Heath Row. This was an experimental system for dispersing fog on the airfield.[5] It had cost £400,000 in total and was expensive to run and not very successful, so the Minister cancelled the project.[6] Fog became a big problem in the winter at that time of chronic air pollution and the low lying Heathrow land that was a fog pocket. Not only that, but with the land almost at sea-level the water-table was close to the surface, and was frequently water-logged.

      The official opening of the airport to international aircraft took place on 31 May, when a BOAC Lancastrian arrived from Australia. It was two hours ahead of schedule, having completed the 12000 mile journey from Sydney in 63.25 hours.[7] Then a Pan-American Airways Constellation landed from New York. The flight took 14 hours with stops in Newfoundland and Shannon. The planes had landed in heavy rain and strong winds and the passengers had a dreary welcome. They had to walk on duck boards to reach the tented reception hall and customs house which were deep in mud from the recent rains.[8]

[1] Yorkshire Evening Post - Monday 25 March 1946

[2] Belfast News-Letter - Tuesday 06 April 1948

[3] Daily News (London) - Tuesday 26 March 1946

[4] Uxbridge & W. Drayton Gazette - Friday 04 January 1946

[5] Daily Express - Thursday 31 January 1946

[6] Dundee Evening Telegraph - Friday 20 December 1946

[7] Illustrated London News - Saturday 08 June 1946

[8] The Sphere - Saturday 29 June 1946

"Tent City".
(from the archive of local historian Douglas Rust)

      Only the Americans airlines were able to make the transatlantic flights because at that time Britain did not have planes capable of making the crossing with a payload of passengers. Lord Winster silenced the critics with assurances that the prospects were rosy and that although the Americans have their Constellations, Britain is developing its own long-range air transport.[1] He was referring to the development of jet aircraft.

      While Lord Winster was defending Britain’s aircraft development he also had to deal with ground-level protests about the airport expansion plans. Local councils, from around the airport, sent a deputation to see Lord Winster on 11 April 1946, but they received no satisfactory outcome.[2] They had submitted a number of amendments to the new Civil Aviation Bill in the interests of the inhabitants of their areas, to mitigate the disturbance any new construction would cause. The Bill allowed for diversion of highways, construction of drainage and utilities, and demolition of houses for which the occupiers would only get the value at 1939 prices plus 30 per cent – not enough to find similar accommodation at the current house prices. The local residents, even without the airport’s expansion plans, were finding their voice. They also started to protest about aircraft noise.[3]

      By September, with the increase in air traffic, there were worries about the inadequacy of radar at both Heathrow and Northolt airports, and the risk of accidents. The landing and take-off circuits at both airports, overlapped, and, as winter approached, concerns are being raised about the danger of poor visibility. The week before representatives from 37 countries, with 300 delegates, had met in London for a conference to discuss adopting international standards and common practice for radar technology. Britain’s radar pioneer, Sir Robert Watson Watt, estimated it will be two years before an international decision can be reached on standards for equipment, and a start made to install radar equipment on the ground at all international airports. At the conference the Government were keen to show the range of defensive radar equipment Britain had developed during the war, but delegates were astonished to learn that no civil airport in Britain had radar equipment. It was admitted that the Ministry of Supply and the R.A.F. could make this equipment available at the two London airports, but there had been no official explanation as to why this had not happened. It seems that although radar was developed as a means of defence, they were slow to recognise it had a new role in air safety.[4]

      More complaints about the conditions at the London Airport were aired by The Sphere journalist in October. The Board of Trade were keen to promote tourism, but as the Sphere magazine pointed out any high-grade visitors will be put off by the conditions at London Airport. The great American composer and songwriter, Irving Berlin had just flown to Britain. His plane was due to land at 11pm, but didn’t arrive until 5am. A group of film executives, producers and music publishers were there to greet him. They had to wait six hours without even being able to get a cup of tea. Simple refreshments like hot drinks and a bun could only be obtained during normal hours. The airport had no drinks licence, and even some of the technical systems were primitive. The runway lights had to be switched on by a man and a bicycle going out to the runway to switch them on. If the wind changed and another runway was to be used then he had to repeat the time-consuming trip to change the lighting. Hangers had started to be erected, but they were not large enough for the transatlantic aircraft, and there was no hard standing to park aircraft, they had to be put on unused runways, and if there was a change in wind direction and that runway was needed suddenly, then there was a frantic scramble to tow the aircraft elsewhere. At this time nine major airlines and a few minor ones were using the airport. They did so knowing the airport facilities were primitive. By this time a few of the tents were being replaced by prefabricated single-storey buildings. Brick-built buildings were not expected to be erected for another two years. Critics believed the airport had opened before it was ready, especially as there was only provision for temporary maintenance of the aircraft. The aircraft had to be flown elsewhere for major repairs.[5]

      The arrival of a B.O.A.C. Lancastrian plane from Sydney on 23 October 1946 marked the two-hundreth each-way trip on the longest and fasted air route in the world.[6] This achievement was over-shadowed by the fact that development at the airport had been halted by a week-long strike by the construction staff.[7] It was not a good start for the new Minister for Civil Aviation, Lord Nathan, but his troubles continued into the winter when fog was responsible for the cancellation of many flights.

      January 1 1946 was a day of many firsts:  the transfer of Heath Row airport from the Air Ministry to the Civil Aviation Ministry; the inaugural flight from the new civil airport for London; the resumption of civil flights in the UK post-war; and the day that B.O.A.C European Division took over commercial flights from 110 Wing of Transport Command.[8] It was a day of optimism. Air travel was seen as the future for Britain. It would make use of British engineering skills, boost jobs, and encourage tourism. The future looked bright.

 
[1] Daily News (London) - Thursday 10 January 1946

[2] Uxbridge & W. Drayton Gazette - Friday 21 June 1946

[3] Evening News (London) - Saturday 22 June 1946

[4] Daily News (London) - Monday 30 September 1946

[5] The Sphere - Saturday 19 October 1946

[6] Dundee Evening Telegraph - Wednesday 23 October 1946

[7] Gloucestershire Echo - Friday 25 October 1946

[8] Watson, Captain Dacre, BRITISH OVERSEAS AIRWAYS CORPORATION 1940 – 1950 AND ITS LEGACY, Journal of Aeronautical History, Paper 2013/03. https://www.aerosociety.com/media/4844/british-overseas-airways-corporation-1940-1950-and-its-legacy.pdf

For more historical stories of the area read:

 “The Vanishing Village: A Legacy Lost to Heathrow’s Third Runway”

by Wendy Tibbitts

 ISBN 978-1-7390822-2-22

Heathrow Expansion: Eighty years of Bad Decisions

Heathrow destruction 1944

In 1939, at the beginning of WWII there were 351 people living in the hamlet of Heathrow. Some went off to serve in the Armed Forces, but the majority stayed to do their “bit” for the war effort by producing fruit and vegetables to sell at London’s Covent Garden market. For the patriotic farmers of Heathrow it came as a shock when on the 2 May 1944 a letter dropped through their letter boxes to say their land was being requisitioned and they had two months to pack up their homes, outbuildings, livestock, and, leaving their growing crops in the fields, find somewhere else to live.[1] The letter was from the Air Ministry and was in response to a decision made at the wartime coalition’s Cabinet meeting on 10 April 1944 when the Ministers had approved the “sterilisation” of the whole of Harmondsworth for the development of an airport.[2] However, just before D-day, with manpower and money in short supply, the Government could not afford to build more than three runways. The airport was to be built in stages. Stage one would be to requisition land south of the Bath Road (A4) which would completely remove Heathrow.

BAD DECISION NUMBER 1

The decision to fix Britain’s first international civil airport at Heathrow had first been muted by Lord Abercrombie who was commissioned to produce a Greater London Plan for post-war London. With the growth of air transport he knew that a civil airport would be needed after the war and he suggested ten possible sites around London. All of these existing airports were surrounded by housing estates and not expandable. The only leading contender was the Fairey Airfield at Heathrow, but there were many objections. Sir Richard Fairey did not want to give up his airfield. The Ministry of Agriculture did not want to bury the land, which, in Abercrombie’s plan, was described as “… a soil fit to be ranked with the world’s very best – a high-class market gardening and orchard soil, also growing fine grass and ordinary farm crops.”[3] It was not until just before D-day in 1944 that the Air Ministry began to construct the first stage by building three runways which would be completed by May 1946 at a cost of £3.8m. This stage would concrete over the grass Fairey airfield and all the Heathrow farms.

Stage 1 Airport Layout

Two years later on 10 January 1946, even before the airport was complete, Atlee’s post-war Cabinet meeting discussed a memorandum put forward by the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs, Viscount Addison.[4] It proposed the establishment of Britain’s main international airport at Heathrow. He said the site of the airport was chosen after prolonged survey of the London area and it was considered to be the only suitable location. It will be necessary to acquire a large tract of land to the north of the Bath Road as well as a number of areas adjacent to the present site. The total cost of acquisition of 4,219 acres will be £7m. About 170 houses would have to be demolished in the area south of the Bath Road as well as a substantial proportion of the 1026 houses in the area north of this road. Also there would need to be “sterilisation” of further land on which building would be “controlled”. The airport was to be called “London Airport” and the name Heathrow discarded. Estimated total cost of the airport, including rail and road construction, was £30 million, but he was unable to estimate how much revenue the airport would generate. Bizarrely the Minister was also considering leasing some of the “sterilised” area of land, and even the land between the runways, to market gardeners. Obviously not considering what aircraft engine emissions would do to the crops or the environment. Estimated use of the airport when two runways were available would be 500 flights a day in normal weather. Total passengers per day would be 8500 of whom 1020 would travel in peak hour. The number of passenger movements per day for the extended airport was “guessed” at 12,000 to 15,000.

BAD DECISION NUMBER 2

During the Cabinet meeting the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Hugh Dalton, accepted the need for an international airport at Heathrow but was concerned about the expenditure involved, and was not convinced that it was necessary at this stage to acquire land north of the Bath Road.[5] He strongly urged that the new enlarged scheme be postponed until 1950. Even though 2650 acres had already been destroyed and concreted, he proposed there should be a discussion about finding a new site for the airport where houses and valuable agricultural land would not be lost. The Minster of Town and Country Planning, Mr. F. Marshall, countered this by saying that all previous experience had shown the advisability of acquiring ample land in order to allow for unforeseen developments, and that unless the land was acquired now it was impossible to plan the development of the main roads in the neighbourhood. The Cabinet gave their approval for the development of the civil London Airport at Heathrow, which would be spread over the next eight years. [6]

Full airport plan proposed 1946

The civil airport opened in 1946. The original Fairey Hanger was used as a fire station, and ex-army tents were erected alongside the A4 as terminal buildings. The next phase of the development, which was to extend the existing runways, started in 1948 when more land to the south of the Bath Road was requisitioned. The Three Magpies public house on the Bath Road(A4) lost the remains of its six acres of land. The farms of the hamlet of Longford were requisition leaving so little agricultural land that farming was not viable. Only Perry Oaks sewage works remained. A further round of land requisition to the north of the Bath Road in 1960 for the building of a spur road from the M4 to the central airport buildings involved the demolition of the Old Magpies on the A4 and the removal of the farmland in Sipson. However as planes got bigger and passenger numbers increased there was still a need for a larger airport.

BAD DECISION NUMBER 3

The Roskill Commission was set up by the Government in 1968 to look into finding a site for a third London airport. London already had Heathrow and Gatwick and now there was a requirement for a four-runway airport. The Commission published its report in January 1971 and after initially considering 78 sites they recommended Cublington in Buckinghamshire as a suitable site. The Government rejected this suggestion and chose another site from the Commission’s short list which was Maplin Sands, Foulness Island, on the Thames Estuary. An Act of Parliament in 1973 paved the way for this development, but this was shelved after Labour came to power in July 1974. Instead a small-scale redevelopment of Stansted airport in Essex was agreed even though this was not a site short-listed by the Roskill Commission.[7]

BAD DECISION NUMBER 4

In 1991 the Transport Secretary, Malcolm Rifkind, promised a wide public consultation on the building of a third runway at Heathrow.[8] It started a wave of protest from local councils in Middlesex and Buckinghamshire, and local residents. [9] At the same time there were also suggestions that a fifth terminal could be built on the land then occupied by the Perry Oaks sewage works. The Middlesex Council were not happy about the loss of the sewage facility, and concerns were expressed by the Buckinghamshire County Council (on whose border it stood) about the increased noise and pollution of planes flying over the county.[10] All protesters were relieved when in October 1993 Heathrow Airport Ltd community relations manager, Jon Philipps, said Heathrow had no plans for a third runway as building a fifth terminal did not require another runway.[11]

BAD DECISION NUMBER 5

However in March 1994 the Department of Transport was holding exhibitions and public meetings about the possibility of building a third runway for completion by 2010. They leafletted all the homes in Harmondsworth and held exhibitions and public meetings in Harlington, West Drayton, Sipson, Uxbridge, Stanwell and Harmondsworth.[12] The preliminary design for the expansion would have removed the hamlet of Sipson, on the north side of the A4, and most of Harmondsworth. However in April 1994 at a meeting of the Hillingdon Council, whilst the public enquiry was still in progress, a copy of a letter from Heathrow Airport Limited was circulated. It read, “I can state categorically that at no stage has either Heathrow Airport Limited, or its parent company BAA plc given evidence to the RUCATSE (Runway Capacity To serve the South East) inquiry indicating support for another runway at Heathrow. The airport needs extra terminal capacity rather than runway capacity.” This letter was signed by Jenny Bradley, director of public affairs at Heathrow Airport Limited.[13] It was not until November 2003 that the government announced that there would be no third runway in the “short term” because to do so would break European pollution laws.[14] However, despite all the public enquiries and the protests from local councils and other public bodies, the fifth terminal was built and opened in 2008 which resulted in a subsequent increase in the number of flights from Heathrow airport.

BAD DECISION NUMBER 6

In 2012 the UK Government established an independent Airports Commission to look again at the future of London’s airports. The 2015 final report of this Commission concluded that Heathrow Airport required a new northwest runway.[15] On 25 June 2018 the House of Commons voted to adopt this recommendation. This time the plan was to demolish the hamlet of Longford on the western edge of the airport, and to extend the runway over the M25 with the motorway disappearing into a tunnel. The Colne River would also be placed in an underground culvert. The hamlet of Sipson would survive but would be so close to the third runway that life in any of the houses would be unbearable. The timetable for the construction was to begin in 2021, when planning consent would be sought from the various local councils, and then construction would begin in 2023. Fate intervened with the schedule in the shape of the pandemic of 2020, when air travel was severely reduced and extra airport facilities were not needed. All talk of building a third runway was quietly dropped, but the residents of the parish of Harmondsworth and its hamlets of Sipson and Longford were left, once more, in limbo with the threat of demolition postponed but not removed. After a change of Government, in January 2025 the new Administration revised the prospect of a third runway and once more the protests began. Successive governments with their short-term thinking and procrastination have blighted Harmondsworth parish for eighty years. The constant threat of further airport expansion, the insecurity of tenure, and uncertainty for the future, has caused a slow decline in the number of long-standing families staying in the parish. Speculators have moved in to buy up property, letting them out on short-term leases, or turning them into houses of multiple occupancy. Some of the many ancient Grade II listed buildings have been left unoccupied and decaying. If the voice of the 1946 Minister of Town and Country Planning had been heard, and sufficient land purchased at the outset for future development of the airport, it might have avoided the prolonged indecision and decades of controversy. Meanwhile the residents of Longford, Sipson and Harmondsworth are in limbo. They have fought hard over decades to preserve their pretty villages that have survived since the Saxons built settlements there. These once peaceful rural agricultural villages with over twenty listed buildings are once again facing an uncertain future.

For the story of what will be lost under the Third Runway read:

‘Longford: A village in Limbo’ by Wendy Tibbitts.

[1] Sherwood, Philip. Heathrow: 2000 years of history, (Stroud, 1999)

[2] The National Archives CAB 66/48/39

[3] Stamp, L.Dudley, ‘Land Classification and Agriculture’, in Abercrombie (ed.), Greater London Plan 1944. (London, 1945),p.87

[4] The National Archives. CAB 129/6/4 5 January 1946

[5] National Archives CAB 128/5/4

[6] The National Archives' reference CAB 66/48/39 April 1944

[7] Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roskill_Commission#

[8] Middlesex Chronicle - Thursday 10 January 1991

[9] Harefield Gazette - Wednesday 25 March 1992

[10] Bucks Advertiser & Aylesbury News - Friday 15 June 2001

[11] Hayes & Harlington Gazette - Wednesday 20 October 1993

[12] Uxbridge & W. Drayton Gazette - Wednesday 16 March 1994

[13] Uxbridge & W. Drayton Gazette - Wednesday 27 April 1994

[14] Wolverhampton Express and Star - Saturday 29 November 2003

[15] Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airports_Commission

THE HIGHWAYMAN’S HIDEAWAY

The former Kings Head or Peggy Bedford 2006 © David Hawgood

Highwaymen were a public menace in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, especially on the vast open area of Hounslow Heath, on the western side of London. Hounslow Heath had to be crossed, with trepidation, by anyone travelling west from London on the Great Bath Road (now the A4) and thieves would lurk, inconspicuously, ready to stop the carriages of wealthy travellers and rob them of their valuables. Travellers breathed a sigh of relief when the carriages and stagecoaches reached the relative safety of the Kings Head in Longford village unscathed. At the Kings Head inn the passengers would enter the warm bar and enjoy refreshments whilst waiting for carriage or stagecoach horses to be changed for the onward journey. As they chatted to their fellow travellers they would not have noticed shadowy figures in dark corners listening to travellers’ tales and deciding who would be the next victim of the highwayman. There are many stories of highwaymen and their activities around the village, but Longford had one of its own. One night, just before Christmas 1769 a farmer left the Kings Head after an evening of heavy drinking. He walked to his nearby farmhouse, saddled his horse, put a kerchief round his face and ventured out on the Heath. With the bravado of a heavy dose of alcohol he held up a private carriage and with no more than a knobbly stick as a weapon he demanded money. The occupant of the carriage, who was prepared for a hold-up, shot and wounded the farmer who rode off. The man was found lying on the Bath Road a little further along from the incident and was taken back to the Kings Head. There his friends nursed him, but he died a few days later and is buried in the parish churchyard. The wealthy farmer was John Tillier, normally a respectable citizen, but his young wife had just died and with Christmas approaching he had let his melancholy make him reckless.

The Kings Head is now a Grade II listed Elizabethan building, on the western edge of London Airport  and only 450 meters from the northern runway. It is a shadow of the former coaching inn that was well-known throughout the country.   The walls of the building can just be glimpsed through the tall trees and overgrown garden on the opposite side of the Old Bath Road from the Littlebrook Nursery. The gates are now closed with concrete blocks and its ancient windows are boarded up. It is a forlorn sight for an inn once visited by Monarchs and nobility, but also the haunt of highwaymen and scoundrels. The Kings Head has many tales to tell, but it did not always look like it does today.  When Queen Anne visited Bath to take the medicinal waters she made Bath a fashionable place for high society to visit. The Bath Road became busy and The Kings Head needed more room. At the end of the eighteenth century the inn was extended out to the road side. It added a 60-horse stable, spacious bar, more accommodation for travellers, and a large ornate reception room known as the Queen Anne Room. This room had a large fireplace with china cabinets in each recess and comfortable furniture fit for Royalty. Unfortunately Queen Anne never saw the inside of the room built for her comfort because by the time she was travelling to Bath to take the waters she was overweight and suffering from gout which made walking difficult. She would stay in the carriage whilst the horses were changed. However many other Kings and Queens did make use of the inn’s hospitality, especially Queen Victoria who in January 1842, famously handed the baby Edward VII to the landlady to hold whilst she drank her tea.

The landlord of the Kings Head in the late eighteenth century was John Bedford. He was a widower when he married local girl Mary Dean in 1778. When he died in 1794, aged 54, his widow, Mary, took over the running of the business with the help of her two eldest children, Joseph and Peggy aged 14 and 13. There were also three younger children. Joseph and Peggy inherited the pub when their mother died in 1807 and then Joseph also died leaving Peggy Bedford to continue as landlady for a total of fifty years. She made the pub famous nationally and it was always referred to as Peggy Bedford’s. She never married, but there were rumours of her being the mistress of a highwayman. Her death in 1859 was reported in newspapers all over the country. Over the centuries many fascinating events occured at the inn, from deaths and scandals, to public meetings, annual dinners, and inquests all of which have been told in the book, “Longford: A Village in Limbo”. In the early twentieth century the pub was a destination for cycling clubs and beanfeast outings. The four-acre kitchen garden was turned into an ornamental garden with a pond, a bowling green and a summer house. An enterprising landlord converted the stables (which are also listed and ‘at risk’) into a training gym for boxers and some of the leading British boxing champions of the day trained there before a major fight.

The Queen Anne extension and the first motor bus through Longford 1920. The number 81 still runs the same route through Longford from Hounslow to Slough today.

In 1928 the Colnbrook bypass was built through the Peggy Bedford’s gardens and the bypass cut the pub off from passing trade. The pub surrendered its licence and a new Peggy Bedford was built on the apex of the old and new roads. The original pub became residential, but in 1934 there was a serious fire that caused the roof to fall in and destroyed the eighteenth century part of the house. However the older part was saved as were two great elm trees which stood in front of the pub. They were said to have been planted by Queen Elizabeth I (although this is unlikely). One was hollow with age and people threw coins in it for luck. The fire was reported in newspapers all around the country. The older house continued as a dwelling.  In 1944 large parts of the farmland around Longford were requisitioned by the Air Ministry to build a airfield with a concrete runway which obliterated the hamlet of Heathrow and Perry Oaks farm. The first Commandant of the Civil Airport, which opened in 1946, was Air Marshall Sir John D’Albiac.[1] He and his family moved into a house they called The Stables which was in fact the now Grade II listed remains of the original Peggy Bedford. They lived there from 1947 until at least 1955. It was under his command that the airport developed the two east/west parallel runways rather than the triangular runway system originally built.[2]

Since 2018 the expansion plans for the airport included the demolition of the whole of the village of Longford. While the future of Longford is unknown the village is blighted and no one will want to live in this wonderful old building. The Old Peggy Bedford will remain on Historic England’s At Risk register.  It is a sad fate for such a distinguished building.

[1] For a Ministry of Information Film about the building of the airport see https://archive.org/details/london_airport_TNA/london_airport_TNA.mpg

[2] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/programmes/the_day_britain_stopped/timelines/heathrow/html/1940s.stm

The boarded up remains of the Tudor building 2018. Now on Historic England’s At Risk register

For more historical stories about Longford, Heathrow and Harmondsworth in West Middlesex read:

“Longford: A Village in Limbo” by Wendy Tibbitts.