Porthill Meadow
PORTHILL MEADOW: Temporary aerodrome (Aka WOLSTANTON & TUNSTALL)
Operated by: Berkshire Aviation and Sir Alan Cobham's National Aviation Day tour
Location: Just N of the B5369, E of the A34, about 2.75nm NW of Stoke-on-Trent city centre
Period of operation:
Berkshire Aviation. 15th to 19th September 1919 & 29th October to 9th November 1920
Sir Alan Cobham's National Aviation Day. 15th & 16th September 1934
A MICHAEL T HOLDER GALLERY
We have Mike Holder, a great friend of this 'Guide', to thank for discovering this location and providing the maps and articles.
Article One was published in the Staffordshire Sentinel on the 17th September 1919.
The local area view is from my Google Earth © derived database. Article Two was published in the Staffordshire Sentinel on the 23rd October 1920.
Also published in the Staffordshire Sentinel, the advert appeared on the 10th September 1934 and the article on the 15th September. The area view is from my Google Earth © derived database.
NOTES: I find it interesting to see that Mr Alan Coham's name features in the Article One above. By the time he returned in 1934, he was of course Sir Alan Cobham. Back in 1919 he was one of the founder members of Berkshire Aviation. It strikes me as being rather odd that when he conducted his Municipal Aerodrome Campaign in 1929, visiting 107 venues around the UK mainland, he did not plan an appearance in 'The Potteries' region. This conglomeration of towns being an ideal staging point between Birmingham and Manchester.
I was tempted to think that he may well have considered these towns to already be air-minded enough? He did however visit COFTEN HACKETT in Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Crewe and Warrington. However, as these events were planned to be major civic occassions by invitation of the town/city councils, and as 1929 was the start of the Great Depression, perhaps the cost of hosting such an event was considered hard to justify?
When the major 'Flying Circus' era began in the early 1930s, Sir Alan Cobham was a late starter, his first tour commencing in 1932. His 1934 Tour began at CENTRAL PARK in Dagenham, ESSEX, on the 14th April. It was planned to visit 159 venues and this was the 145th. The Tour ended at MAYLANDS aerodrome, Romford, also in ESSEX, on the 30th September.
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