Lenny Barn
LENNY BARN: Temporary aerodrome (Aka CLARKE'S LANE, FALINGE ROAD and GREENHILL)
Operated by: Messrs Moxon, Brown & Co
Location: Roughly 1nm NW to NNW of Rochdale town centre
Period of operation: 23rd to 30th October 1920
A MICHAEL T HOLDER GALLERY
Here once again we have Mike Holder, a great long-term friend of this 'Guide', to thank for both discovering this little known venue and providing the following items to illustrate it.
Both of these adverts were placed in the Rochdale Times. Advert One on the 16th October and Advert Two on the 23rd October. Note how the venue address had been changed.
The Article One in two parts, was published in the Rochdale Times on the 27th October 1920.
Both Article Two and Three were published in the Rochdale Times on the 30th October 1920. In those days newspapers were published with, generally, three editions every day.
And, they were the only official source of news, both locally and nationally. Indeed, the very first minimal public BBC radio broadcast was made on the 14th November 1922. What we tend to ignore today is, just how effective for local news, the verbal 'grapevine' was.
NOTES: I have made an attempt to identify which Avro 504K, (it was most probably a 504K), was being used here, and failed miserably. Based at RHYL Messrs Moxon, Brown & Co, were licensees of the Avro company and they had in effect a subsidiary company, the Avro Transport Company, established in 1919, devoted to joy-riding operations with a huge fleet of, as far as I can make out, some 80 aircraft. A few of which were hired out as in this case.
All based around the original pre-WW1 Avro 504 design, it seems to me that they operated nearly every variant? For those of an 'anorak' tendency: 504K, 504L, 504M, 536, 538 and 548. But not for some reason, the 504N variant.
After WW1 there was a massive interest with the public in having a fllght, no doubt fuelled by the huge publicity given to air aces in that conflict. But, it didn't last long as that part of Avro ceased trading around the end of 1920.
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