Hill of Oaks Slipway, Tower Wood, Cumbria
N 54° 18.408 W 002° 56.977
30U E 503278 N 6017658
The concrete slipway was built around 1909 to launch the first experimental seaplanes on to Windermere lake. Nowadays principally used by boat owners at Hill Of Oaks Caravan park. Not many slipways have this pedigree.
Waymark Code: WM9QV8
Location: North West England, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 09/21/2010
Views: 2
Back in 1909 Captain WE Wakefield saw that early pilots were crashing and seriously wounding themselves and dying. He proposed that flying over water would be less fatalistic. To that end he started experimenting with floats on early planes. Flight was still in its infancy. Pilot's licences were still numbered less than a hundred. Captain Wakefield had access to Hill of Oaks woodland, in which he laid a road to the lake shore and one of the few flat pieces built a hangar and workshops. The hangar still stands, just, and is a Grade 2 listed building.
There is a project to build a replica of the successful seaplane, Waterbird in time for the centenary of that first flight from a body of water. (
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At the same time as Captain Wakefield was experimenting, on the same stretch of water, based on the other side of the lake, was Oscar Gnosspelius. See WM251E (
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Captain Wakefield invited Oscar to share facilities at Hill of Oaks. The successful design was a stepped long float, which allowed the underpowered aircraft to break free of water tension. Borwicks of Bowness were the float builders. AV Roe were the airframe assemblers, and the rotary engine came from Gnome of France.
Near this slipway is a hard standing of concrete where nowadays boats are stored. There are other launching slipways and jetties on the site. Touring caravans and motor homes can only be accommodated. No flat areas for tents, as heavily wooded and everywhere is on a slope.
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Despite the age of this slipway the surface is in very good repair and the level of the lake is kept between set limits so the slipway is always usable. In 2011 a memorial pillar has been placed at Ferry Nab near Cockshott Point, to mark Windermere lake as an airfield. (
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Streetmap (
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