Colwick Park
COLWICK PARK: Forced landing ground
Location: Colwick is about 2nm E of Nottingham city centre
Period of operation: 30th September to 1st November 1910
NOTES: I mention this, (there are other examples elsewhere in this Guide), because it is nigh on a perfect illustration of the impact the arrival of just one aeroplane could have in those times and the way pilots went about flying. For a full account please refer to the article by Nick Forder, Curator of Aviation, Museuem of Science and Industry in Manchester, in the April 2005 edition of Airfield Review).
The article is basically about the exploits of Monsieur Paul de Lesseps and his Blériot X1. This pilot was one of an all-French contingent visiting England for the second great air meeting at DONCASTER. Poor weather made this pretty much a non-event so they decamped to BURTON-UPON-TRENT. (Presumably this was a previously planned flying meeting venue?).
It seems that the dashing Paul had set off from BURTON-UPON-TRENT on the 29th September to fly around Lichfield Cathedral and had been surprised to find it getting dark, far too dark in fact so he landed. (I’d have thought they had watches in those days…but anyway). I wonder if anybody today knows where he landed?
The next day he took-off the following afternoon intending to return to BURTON-UPON-TRENT. Despite saying he followed the river, and attempting to set an altitude record along the way, (as one did it seems), he missed BURTON-UPON-TENT and found himself over Nottingham which he thought was BURTON-UPON-TRENT.
PAR FOR THE COURSE?
All this is very much ‘par for the course’ in those days but it was the result that interests me. Landing at COLWICK PARK, “within moments the young man and his machine were the centre of an excited and nondescript throng”. “Everybody flocked from the Hall, even the bar was left untended. Farm hands forsook their tasks to rush across the Park; skipper, crew and passengers abandoned their pleasure steamer lying at the stage, and other pleasure seekers on the river hastened in their wake”. Just like rock-n-roll idols half a century later de Lesseps found “eager and excited crowds armed with scraps of paper, pencils and fountain pens pressed upon him for his signature”.
Fortunately Mrs Swann, wife of the proprietor of COLWICK HALL, appears to have had some fluency in French and managed to sort the whole debacle out by telephoning the Mayor of Burton-upon-Trent to inform him and the officials of the flying meeting where he was. According to local records he took-off from COLWICK HALL on the 1st October and made it back to BURTON, “where he landed to a great ovation from the crowd”.
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