Capper Road
Introduction
The photograph on this page of Capper Road by Ian Capper as part of the Geograph project.
The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
There are currently over 7.5m images from over 14,400 individuals and you can help contribute to the project by visiting https://www.geograph.org.uk
Capper Road
Image: © Ian Capper Taken: 2 May 2014
Housing originally built as married quarters for personnel at RAF Waterbeach/Waterbeach Royal Engineer base. Following closure of the base in 2013, the houses were transferred in stages to Annington Homes who refurbished them for onward sale or letting. Although I have seen no specific evidence of the origin of the name, the airbase and Royal Engineers connection coupled with Capper Road coming off nearby Cody Road points to it commemorating Colonel John Capper RE. Colonel Capper, later Major-General Sir John Capper KCB KCVO, along with American entrepreneur Samuel Franklin Cody, was involved in the development of Britain's first powered military aircraft, a semi-rigid airship named Nulli Secundus, including being at the controls of its maiden flight at Farnborough on 10 September 1907 and a longer flight on 5 October 1907 from Farnborough over central London before landing at Crystal Palace. They then became involved in the development of fixed wing aircraft, with Cody designing and building British Army Aeroplane Number 1, which on 16 October 1908 undertook the first sustained aeroplane flight in the UK.
Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0
Image Location
Latitude
52.273569
Longitude
0.200719