This airport was once the gateway to Europe. Now no one’s heard of it

London (CNN) — The words “Croydon” and “destination” are not what you’d call soulmates. “I’m certain that of all the places I’ve visited,” writes Tom Chesshyre in “To Hull and Back,” a travelog that sets out to visit the lesser-appreciated parts of Britain, “I’m least likely to return to Croydon.”

The south London town is widely mocked for its none-too-idyllic high-rise skyline, a direct product of a megalomania of office-building between the late 1950s and early 1970s.

True, there’s a small hotel district in the east of the town, flagged by glowing signs for Leonardo and Hampton by Hilton. But it’s unlikely guests are planning a sightseeing tour of Croydon courtesy of one of the lime green trams snaking through the town. They invariably have an early morning flight to catch from Gatwick Airport, which lies just 16 miles southwest of Croydon. It’s far cheaper to stay here than to get an airport hotel.

Gatwick Airport, though, wasn’t always around. Just over a mile and a half southwest of Croydon’s modern hotels lies a Neoclassical hotel at the side of the busy Purley Way road.

The bar is usually propped up with sapped business people, but it was once populated with pilots with nicknames like “Dizzy” and Scruffy “the Undertaker” Robinson. They swigged beers and swapped stories about dense fog and near-misses, while their own framed caricatures hung behind the bar. This was – indeed, still is –  the Aerodrome Hotel, the first purpose-built airport hotel in the world.

And next to it stood Britain’s first international airport.

A byproduct of war

“My brother and myself went into my parents’ bedroom with its big brass bedstead and my father took us to the window and we saw this silver Zeppelin, lit up by searchlights, with the bursts of anti-aircraft shells exploding around it.”

This is the recollection of David Lean, who director of “Brief Encounter” and “Lawrence of Arabia,” but who was at the time a frightened young boy living in Croydon.

While the thought of London being bombed conjures up images of a smoke-shrouded St. Paul’s Cathedral in the Blitz, London and its surrounds were already under attack during World War I. Croydon was a target, and following a particularly devastating raid in 1915, a plot of land to the southwest of the town was requisitioned under the Defence of the Realm Act, and turned into Beddington Aerodrome.

From here, Sopwith Camels and Bristol Fighters sortied into the night sky, attempting to bring down the inflatable German “baby killers.”

Soon though, war came to an end, and it looked as though Croydon’s tenure as an airbase would too.

But then something happened. Hounslow Heath Aerodrome – which had technically operated Britain’s first international flights – was requisitioned by the War Office. Beddington joined up with the neighboring airfield at Waddon, which’d briefly been used to test new aircraft. Together they became Croydon Aerodrome.

Winging it

Croydon 1.0 was hardly in the league of Singapore’s Changi International.

It was essentially a collection of cobbled-together wooden buildings and old army huts. The control tower was another hut, this one on stilts accessed by a ladder. Inside it, one visiting journalist found “magicians playing about with little levers and handles.”

The customs house was a glorified barn with signs tacked up above two doors: “British” and “Non-British.”

Imperial Airways’ first PR man, Robert Brenard, said the whole scene “reminded one forcibly of a Wild West township.”

Sheep had to be shooed off the runway. With no radar to speak of, pilots swooped low over train stations to glimpse the sign on the platform and figure out where they were.

One pilot claimed that when looking to land, he sniffed the air; if his nostrils picked up the ripe aroma of Beddington Sewage Works, he knew he was almost home. It’s unclear if he was joking.

The struggle to attract passengers was real. Flying in the early 1920s was an especially expensive affair, and many were anxious about it too – not surprising given how frequent accidents were.

As a forerunner to the deals offered by airlines today, there were special season tickets to Paris, and Easter holiday discounts. These had little effect.

The British government didn’t exactly help matters. “Civil aviation must fly by itself,” said Winston Churchill, who was secretary of state for air between 1919 and 1921. “The government cannot possibly hold it up in the air.” Churchill didn’t mention that he himself had taken flying lessons at Beddington, crashed and very nearly died.

While countries like France, the Netherlands and Germany enjoyed generous subsidies from their respective governments – and already had nascent versions of Air France, KLM and Lufthansa – the Brits were left to fend for themselves.

This could sometimes lead to some embarrassing situations. In “The Seven Skies: A Study of B.O.A.C. and Its Forerunners Since 1919,” John Pudney mentions an episode in which airline staff were ordered to pretend to be passengers during a flight to Germany. The flight would have otherwise been totally empty, save a renowned American lecturer, who the Brits didn’t want to embarrass themselves in front of.

Things take off

Gradually, the tide turned and the government realized air travel wasn’t going away. In 1924, Britain’s first national airline, Imperial Airways, was formed. A race was set up between an Argosy airliner, the “City of Glasgow,” and the “Flying Scotsman” steam train, between London and Edinburgh. As it transpired, the “City of Glasgow” only pipped the train by 15 minutes, but there was now little doubt: flying would become the superior mode of transport.

Things gradually grew more sophisticated, destinations more ambitious. Harry Beck, who’d designed the iconic “circuit board” London Underground map, was commissioned to come up with a similar-style map flaunting Imperial Airways’ routes. Instead of Goodge Street, Dollis Hill, Ladbroke Grove and Camden Town, the “lines” led to Gaza, Delhi, Luxor and Cape Town.

Flights, though, were anything but direct. The “Kangaroo” route from Croydon to Charleville in Australia involved 28 stops – plus a train between Paris and Brindisi for good measure. On the plus side, passengers got to see so much more of the world when they traveled.

Slowly but steadily, passenger confidence (and numbers) grew. In 1927, 92-year-old Elizabeth Reeves, dressed, as the “Evening Standard” newspaper described her, in “Victorian period” clothes, took her first flight, becoming surely the oldest person at that time to ascend into the heavens, and come back down again. “I really don’t feel at all afraid,” Reeves smiled as she stepped onto the plane at Croydon, “but I had two small nips of whisky before I left home.”

While the birth of Imperial Airways had been a boon to British air travel, what turned it into a shining beacon was Croydon’s stunning Neoclassical airport complex, opened in January 1928.

Here was the first purpose-built air traffic control tower, departure lounge and airport shops. Walking in through the doors, passengers were greeted by an octagonal clock showing details of flights and departures.

A board on the wall detailed what the weather was doing in different corners of the globe. You could even buy French newspapers.

The Aerodrome Hotel opened next door at the same time, offering French-language menus. All of a sudden, Croydon was the height of sophistication.

Though you could fly from Croydon to almost anywhere, its flagship flight was Imperial Airways’ Silver Wing service, which departed from Croydon to Paris Le Bourget daily at 12.30 p.m., and from 1930 were flown on the majestic Handley Page HP-42s.

As these planes leveled out, white-jacketed stewards offered a choice of four Champagnes and 10 cocktails, and a six-course meal served on blue and white china, with metal cutlery, real glasses and damask tablecloths. The food had been sourced from Croydon’s Surrey Street market that morning.

Some of Croydon’s passengers still preferred to bring their own, as was the case with eccentric millionaire Nubar Gulbenkian, who had his valet prepare dishes of game consommé on board.

Croydon might not have had all the creature comforts of modern-day air travel, but the interwar years were undeniably a golden era.

It’s true that passengers had to go through the ordeal of being individually weighed.

It’s also true that the seats weren’t as comfortable as though on today’s airliners, made as they were from wicker.

The HP-42s pootled along at what we’d consider a snail’s pace (95 miles-per-hour top whack). Then again, from entering the airport, it took as little as 10 minutes to board your flight.

If the cabin got stuffy, you could open a window and feel the breeze in your hair. As planes flew low back then, you often had a scenic view out of the window.

In-flight movies didn’t come as standard of course, although Croydon did screen the first full-length in-flight movie. The year was 1925, and the film was “The Lost World,” based on Arthur Conan Doyle’s sci-fi dinosaur fiction. The pilot thoughtfully steered through dense clouds to darken the cabin.

As for the Aerodrome Hotel, it was a hit, not just with overnight guests, but with day-trippers too.

“It must be particularly emphasized,” reads the hotel’s literature from the time, “that the Aerodrome Hotel is not a mere terminus hotel, but is used frequently as a holiday resort and sightseeing base by tourists and motorists.”

Between 1932 and 1933, almost 70,000 took advantage of the hotel’s bar, restaurant and rooftop viewing platform, from which they could watch planes take off and land.

Others were happy to watch the wealthy female passengers making their way across the airport apron, while commenting on their choice of clothes.

Croydon became not just a destination, but the destination.

Celebrities – including Babe Ruth, Fred Astaire, John F. Kennedy, and Hollywood couple Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks – came.

Charlie Chaplin was familiar with Croydon too. Landing here in 1921, he was “kidnapped” by an overzealous cinema owner, who’d put on a fake mustache, pretended to be Chaplin’s chauffeur, and instead of driving him to the Savoy, had taken him to his picture house in the London district of Clapham.

In 1935, Agatha Christie published the Hercule Poirot novel “Death in the Clouds,” in which a woman is found murdered on a flight as it comes into land at Croydon.

Croydon had become part of popular culture.

Fall from grace

Though the 1928 airport complex was a big step up from the original aerodrome, Croydon was still blighted by problems.

It was a distance from central London, and without its own railway station. Worse was the fog – thick and tenacious, thanks to Croydon’s location at the foot of the Surrey North Downs.

December 9, 1936, witnessed the biggest disaster ever to happen at Croydon, when a KLM airliner attempting to take off in the fog crash-landed into a house soon after, killing more than a dozen passengers and crew. Among them was a former prime minister of Sweden, and Juan de la Cierva, inventor of the autogyro.

Tragedies like this certainly didn’t help Croydon’s reputation, but something else would prove the coup de grâce.

Just as World War I had breathed unlikely life into Croydon Airport, World War II more or less took it away. The RAF took over, and civilian flights stopped. The airport was damaged by bombing, and lost many of its personnel in conflict too.

Though Croydon reopened after the war, in 1946, Heathrow took the reins as the country’s premier international airport. Croydon’s incredible story was coming to an end.

While the Aerodrome Hotel remains, so too does a large chunk of the Neoclassical airport, now a business center known as Airport House.

The closest you’ll get to traveling to Pakistan from here today is a chicken karahi from the Imperial Lounge restaurant, nestled in one corner of the ground floor. And yet, thanks to its remarkable preservation, you can still get a real sense of the airport in its heyday – particularly on its monthly open days.

Here, tour guides will lead you on fascinating tours taking in the departure lounge, its original mezzanine and skylight still intact; wicker chairs on which passengers were once whisked to far-flung lands; vintage booklets providing “Hints for Lady Passengers” (”Do not use much powder during the flight, as the temperature varies a good deal’).

It’s quite something to think that nearly two million passengers have bustled through this place.

Out the front of Airport House is a plinth-mounted de Havilland DH.114 Heron – frozen in mid-flight. It’s the same model of plane in which Geoffrey Last (talk about nominative determinism) flew Croydon’s final flight back in 1959. Such was the sense of loss from Croydonians, that as they watched the plane vanish into the skies, they set light to an effigy of the minister of transport and civil aviation. Up in the old control tower – also in fantastically good condition – meanwhile, you will find a framed poem by Ken Steel, “The Lost Airport.” It concludes:

Alas those happy times have passed and gone.

No more the neon beams its welcome light.

Croydon is dead, her halcyon days are done.

No more her klaxon stirs the summer night.

Croydon is dead, but though her sun has set,

In airmen’s hearts her fame is living yet.

Croydon, though, is far from dead. The airport may not be operating anymore, but just as it was back in the 1920s and ‘30s, it remains an attraction in its own right – still bringing in people from near and far, and in doing so, making Croydon the unlikeliest of destinations.

Croydon Airport Visitor Centre opens for public tours on the first Sunday of every month. Book ahead, as they often sell out.

“Croydonopolis: A Journey to the Greatest City That Never Was” by Will Noble is published by Safe Haven on September 5, 2024.

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