Fowlmere

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18 years 10 months

Posts: 4,796

Appeared on FaceAche:

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Mike Pettyto Fenland History on Facebook 5 hrs

Fowlmere Airfield 1917 - Vanished Cambridgeshire:
Cambridge Antiquarian Society compiled a photographic survey of Cambridgeshire between 1904 and 1940, visiting every village and recording aspects of the county that were likely to disappear.
This photo of Fowlmere milestone and airfield, 1917 was taken by W.M. Palmer
Can you place it, what memories does it spark. And could you share a modern view of the same scene – let’s rediscover ‘Vanished Cambridgeshire’
Here’s my caption:
The Rev A.C. Yorke read a paper to the Cambridge Antiquarian Society in May 1911:
Fowlmere, humdrum, commonplace, yields to the curious and inquisitive much that is of amusement and interest. Why do the roads meander as they do? Which is the older, road or tenement? Why this copyhold should enjoy the ‘ancient Right of Common Pasture’ and that, t’other side of a crumbling wall, should never have had that Right? [A.C. Yorke. A village in the making. 1911 - PCAS vol.15]
Yet ‘humdrum’ Fowlmere soon found itself possessed of an airfield which opened as a training establishment in 1918 and ended its days as a storehouse for planes until its hangars were demolished in 1923.
The hangars are glimpsed in the background of a photograph presented to the Survey in 1917.
When the war ended, a rather free and easy attitude prevailed at the airfield and joy rides were given to local people in aircraft such as the Avro 504. [L.W. Price. Bird lake village. 2002]. The milestone was one of a series erected in 1731 on the road from Cambridge to Barkway, believed to be the first true milestones set up since Roman times. They were originally paid for from a bequest of Dr. W. Mowse, the Master of Trinity Hall & carry the college arms.

The photographs and negatives taken as part of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society’s ‘Photographic Survey’ have been deposited in the Cambridgeshire Collection in Cambridge Central Library where they may be consulted by all.
The caption is amongst thousands of similar stories in ‘A Cambridgeshire Scrapbook 1897-1990’ which you can read and download from my Internet Archive site – https://archive.org/details/CambridgeshireScrapbook2018Revision
There are also a 100 ‘mini-scrapbooks’ on individual villages including this one –
‘Vanishing Cambridgeshire’ by Mike Petty was first published by Breedon Books in 2003; it can still be found in Antiquarian bookshops and via internet booksellers
For more about the Cambridge Antiquarian Society see their website - http://www.camantsoc.org/

Original post

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 3,183

Interesting, thank you!

If you look here: 52°04'31.17" N 0°03'54.41" E on Google Earth and find the 2007 imagery you'll see cropmarks from the original Fowlmere airfield - it's at the southern end of its WW2 version. I think on the disused WW2 airfields FaceAche page, someone came up with a link to photos of the demolition circa 1920 as well. Somewhere I have a photo of an aircrew sergeant which I think is from there as well... but where?

ETA - I've searched that group and can't find it. I know the discussion was relatively recent so it's out there on the intertubes somewhere... good luck finding it!

Adrian

Member for

13 years

Posts: 422

Just love the 1753 milepost in its 1917 coat of paint, and today showing its age with a patina of lichen and mellowed colouring.

Classic 'Flypast Forum' conundrum here.

The conundrum here is, do I rush out with wire brush, chisel and pots of spray paint to 'restore' it to its condition 100 years ago; do I erect a brown 'tourist information' sign next to it, declaring it to be one of the oldest stone mileage posts in post Roman Britain, or do I dig it up and take into a museum? Restore to 'new', preserve 'as is', or display out of context dry and safe in a museum? I'd leave it there, protected by its own isolation, as a stone it could still be there in a thousand years - it has already clocked up a quarter of that.

There is no correct answer, but no doubt lots of conflicting opinion. As this is stone not wood, metal and fabric, perhaps best to leave the subject (and the mile stone) alone.

Member for

18 years 10 months

Posts: 4,796

I'd throw a fresh coat of paint on it.... pukka whitewash though.

Member for

20 years 6 months

Posts: 504

Then and now taken today. Quite fitting that the current runway is where the old hut once stood.

I do wonder if it was removed during WWII and replaced later as it's current location would have put it on the southern edge of the East West runway as it crossed the road back then. Not something you would want at the edge of a runway!
Nice bit of history regardless