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Cardington Airfield, BEDFORD, MK42 0TG

These were built in the 20's to house airships. Following the disaster with the R101, all work on airships was discontinued.

This is the sadly neglected shed No 1 once used for housing the mighty airships. The ill-fated R101 was often seen round these parts during its trials and left from this very place before crashing near Beauvais in France en route to India in 1930 http://www.airshipsonline.com/airships/r101/Crash/R101_Crash.htm , effectively scuppering any further development of the extra large aircraft. Meantime, the German zeppelins ruled the lighter than air skies until 1937. More recently, plans to recreate enormous volumed ships as 'floating cranes' have emerged http://www.cargolifter.com/index.php?id=8&L=1 , so we may yet see them return to the skies.

The historic airship hangars at Cardington near Bedford. The massive hangars built to construct and house Britain's airships of the 1920's and put to a number of uses in more recent years. Hangar 1 (the furthest away in this photo) is currently undergoing a large renovation project to repair and re-clad. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Cardington

The view South to the massive, brooding airship hangars at Cardington near Bedford. Over 800 feet in length, 180 wide and over 150 high. The hangars built to construct and house Britain's airships of the 1920's and put to a number of uses in more recent years. Hangar 1 (the closest in this photo) is currently undergoing a large renovation project to repair and re-clad. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Cardington

Airships were built here between 1915 and the crash of the R101 in 1930. The nearer No.2 shed was brought from Pulham, Norfolk, and re-erected in 1928; it is 247 metre long and 48 metres tall. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardington,_Bedfordshire and http://www.aht.ndirect.co.uk/sheds/Cardington.htm

Looking towards the east end of the hangar from the south central staircase at about 40 feet above the hangar floor. By this date the whole hangar was in the care of the Building Research Establishment, into which the Fire Research Station had been merged in 1972. Visible are in the foreground is a 5-storey tower used for investigating fire spread on external building cladding materials; behind and to the right is a gable wall and roof of a two-storey 3-bedroomed detached house, used for looking at problems of domestic fire detectors; mid-right of picture is a calorimeter hood used to measure the heat output of burning furniture and other items; rear centre is an eight-storey steel-framed office block built for fire and other structural tests, and to the left of that is a 707 fuselage used for work for CAA on improving fire resistance of aircraft seating. A view looking in the opposite direction is at Image (Photo is a scan of a print from a 35mm Agfa slide - see Image for a similar view in 1970.)

The massive Cardington Airship Hangars 1 and 2 brooding over the neighbouring arable land - 180 feet high and 280 feet wide at their base they dominate the surrounding countryside. Hangar 1 to the right is currently being repaired and re-clad. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardington,_Bedfordshire

Technically hangars, but generally and affectionately know as sheds by the people who worked there. For more information about these huge structures see Image and Image

A view from the central staircase on the north side of the hangar looking towards the east end from about 70 feet above floor level. This view was taken shortly after the Fire Research Station (then based at Borehamwood, Herts) leased part of the hangar from the Ministry of Defence for tests on high-rack storage. The racking in the middle distance of the photograph is about 40 feet high, to give some idea of the scale of this building. For a more recent view see Image

Part of the east end of Hangar No. 2 photographed in 1970. We are looking down from the central roof catwalk 163 feet above the floor of the hangar at an experimental high-rack storage system being subjected to fire tests by the Fire Research Station. (See Image for a more general view of the interior.)