Whilst looking at an old map the other day I found an 'Old Airfield' marked in an area that I was unaware of there ever having been any flying before.
The map can be found at
View: OS Seventh Series, Sheet 62, Edinburgh - Ordnance Survey One-inch to the mile maps of Great Britain, Seventh Series, 1952-1961 and the field can be found marked at NT385682just to the south east of Cousland. As well as the old airfield there is another place marked as 'Airfield' approximately 500m to the South. This is the appropriately named Airfield Farm.
A google search does not bring up any history of this field other than the local community's opposition to turning it into an opencast coal mine.
On the host site for those maps I have checked older editions and it was still marked as 'Old Airfield' in 1926 but
was marked as "Airfield' in 1904. Strangely, it was the same on the
1898 map and it is even marked on the 1857 map.
Was this an old Ballooning station? Perhaps but I think not. If you look closer at the 1898 map you will see marked an 'Old Windmill' adjacent to the word 'Airfield'. The Airfield in this case I think is referring to the building immediately to the east. It seems that over time the Farm has been rebuilt further to the south east and the 1904 maps have both farms marked with the same name. On the 1926 map the NW farm was marked as Old Airfield.
So, if there never was an airfield here, how did the farm get its name???????