Memorial to The Home of Aviation - Eastchurch, Kent
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SMacB
N 51° 24.397 E 000° 51.450
31U E 350986 N 5697222
Memorial to the Home of Aviation, a stone memorial at Eastchurch, Isle of Sheppey. It commemorates early aviation flights from Leysdown and Eastchurch by members the Royal Aero Club of Great Britain, and the air base established by the Royal Navy.
Waymark Code: WMZ3B6
Location: South East England, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 09/04/2018
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"A memorial unveiled in 1955 commemorating the Royal Aero Club of Great Britain flying grounds at Leysdown and Eastchurch (from 1909) and the first Royal Navy aviators based at Eastchurch from 1911. Portland stone with integral seating. Designed by Sidney Loweth FRIBA, sculpted by Hilary Stratton FRBS."
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"The Eastchurch memorial commemorates the first home of British aviation, the first factory for the manufacture of heavier than air machines and the first Royal Naval Air Service Station. Appropriately, it is located at the corner of the High Street, where one road leads to Leysdown and the other to what was Eastchurch airfield. The structure consists of a Portland stone wall curved in plan on one side, like the camber of an aeroplane wing, and straight on the other. At the top of the wall are panels carved with aeroplanes of the 1909-11 era. The central figure is Zeus, Greek mythological God of the Heavens. At each end of the wall is a pillar surmounted by a sphere of the heavens with a group of navigating instruments on one side and an airman’s helmet at the other. The piers are supporters of aeroplane landing wheels. Below the central tablets is placed a small pond over which is inscribed a flying boat coming in to alight.
The Eastchurch memorial was the idea of a few of the older inhabitants of Eastchurch who got together in 1949 to investigate a suitable memorial to commemorate the events which took place in their midst during the years 1908-11. After a letter in The Times, signed by Winston Churchill, great interest was shown in the project with Sir Winston Churchill, Lord Brabazon, Oswald Short and Sir Francis McClean becoming patrons."
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Other inscriptions identify the aircraft depicted, list names of early aviators (including John Moore-Brabazon, Charles Rolls, Frank McClean (who granted a lease of the Eastchurch site to the Aero Club), A. K. Huntington, J. W. Dunne, Maurice Egerton, T. O. M. Sopwith, Cecil Grace, Alec Ogilvie, Percy Grace, Ernest Pitman, G. P. L. Jezzi, and James Travers) and early aircraft designers and engineers (including Horace Short, Eustace Short, Oswald Short, and the first four pilots of the Royal Naval Air Service: Charles Rumney Samson, Arthur Longmore, and Reginald Gregory RN, and Eugene Gerrard RMLI.