Arkroyal I stand corrected
"1930 saw the opening of the Gatwick Aerodrome nearby (the first airport in the UK to have its own railway station)." source Crawley OnLine
"The present station was opened by British Railways in 1958. It was built on the original Gatwick Racecourse, which it was intended to serve, when it was built in 1891."
"Gatwick Racecourse opened in 1891 and proved popular - the Grand National was even hosted there during the Great War. An airfield was opened nearby in the 1930s, and soon after, the circular `Beehive' terminal building was built - a radical design at the time. Gatwick Aerodrome was requisitioned by the R.A.F. during WW2, then returned to commercial use until it was closed in 1956 to be redeveloped as an alternative to Heathrow. was opened by H.M.The Queen in June 1958. "
However on the fifties construction and the closure of Gatwick racecourse I submit a .
map of Gatwick Racecourse overlain on the present site.
Heston
. But in 1929 Heston Airport was built, and arterial roads began to be widened and constructed. By 1937 the airport had been bought by the government and plans were in motion to demolish the whole of Cranford apart from the church, and build the country's principal airport. If the second world war hadn't intervened, jets might have been flying from London Cranford airport instead of London Heathrow!
Heston Airport is famous for a single event — it was there that Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain landed after flying back from Germany and talks with Adolf Hitler in 1939, waving a piece of white paper and announcing that there would be "Peace in our Time".
During the second world war, RAF Spitfires and Hurricanes flew from Heston airport, followed by US Air Force bombers.
But after the war plans for enlarging the airport were transferred to Heathrow
Spiney Norman the bemused hare was at Aldergrove '58.
Wonderfull what few Yahoo searches and a bit of cut and paste can turn up