Description

Between 1917 and 1921, Stonehenge had an aerodrome for a near-neighbour. Initially a Royal Flying Corps training establishment, from January 1918 it became the number one School of Aerial Navigation and Bomb Dropping, home to a contingent of RNAS Handley Page bombers. The aerodrome featured two camps either side of a take-off and landing ground, the first located close to Fargo Plantation, and a subsequent and more substantial technical and domestic site situated either side of what is now the A303, a few hundred yards west of Stonehenge. After the war, the aerodrome buildings became the focus of debate about what constituted unacceptable modern intrusions in the Stonehenge landscape. Following a public appeal the aerodrome and neighbouring farmland was purchased, the buildings dismantled and removed and thus the Stonehenge landscape was restored to something deemed more appropriate as a setting the for the monument.