Brockworth Airfield, alternative name Hucclecote Airfield.
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Hucclecote Airfield would not readily spring to mind with the same ring as Tangmere, Boscombe Down, Kinloss or Little Rissington. It was not constructed, as many airfields in the area were, during World War II. The history is a little older circa 1915 when it was built as an Air Board Acceptance Park for the delivery by road of military aircraft. The airfield grew in importance when an original company building aircraft at the H. H. Martyn & Co factory in Cheltenham during the First World War moved to premises beside the Hucclecote runway. The change was brought about by the change in skills required when aircraft design changed from wood to metal-based. The Martyn’s factory continued to produce sophisticated architectural wood- and metalwork.
In the years between the wars many famous aircraft were designed by Henry Folland and produced at the factory in Hucclecote by a strangely named company – Gloster Aircraft Company. This was intentional because it was thought that Gloucestershire was too easy to misspell and definitely too difficult for foreigners to pronounce! (Try spelling Hucclecote on the ‘phone.) At the start of the Second World War the Gloster Gladiator, which was developed with private money, was very much in active service, serving famously in Malta. By now the Gloster Company was part of Hawker Siddeley and went on to produce several thousand each of Hawker Hurricanes and Typhoons. The number of staff reached to over 10,000 and consequently drew in workers from all over the UK. Much of that particular heritage could be heard in the accents around Hucclecote and Brockworth either of which you could have been forgiven for thinking was in the County of Lancashire.
Perhaps the airfield’s greatest moments were in the April 1941 when the E28/39 aircraft, with a jet engine designed by Sir Frank Whittle, became airborne in taxiing runs for the first time. The aircraft was then dismantled for its journey by road to RAF Cranwell and quieter climes out of the reach of prying eyes.
Here again is a strange connection with Cheltenham. As the simple brass model in the Regent Arcade commemorates, the construction work on one of the prototype aircraft was carried out on the premises Regent Motors that stood near the site. It may not have been the first jet-engine powered flight, but this was the first allied jet aircraft. The improved design aircraft finally flew as a Gloster Meteor in 1943. The Gloster/Hawker aircraft names along with their designers are commemorated in street names around the area, Javelin, Delta, Meteor, Hurricane and Folland. The aircraft factory was finally sold to Gloucester Trading Estates in 1964.