RNAS Howden - The Airfield Research Group

Part 3: Location and Planning
Howden, in East Yorkshire functioned as an RNAS operational patrol station for non-rigid and rigid
airships 1 . It was also a parent to two sub-stations or mooring stations, located at Lowthorpe and
Kirkleatham.
The parent site is located to the north of Howden village mainly on the east side of Bubwith Road, but
the requisitioned land appears to have included as far west as Brindley’s Plantation, and as far south to
include part of Spaldington Common, then Hall Farm in the east and Mount Pleasant Farm to the north.
Brindcommon Farm, located in the southern corner of the site, was at first used by the works department
but was then demolished.
The site was planned from the beginning, based around a standard RNAS patrol station arrangement
with the main sheds being built in two phases. Firstly around October 1915, two coastal class sheds
were erected by the Cleveland Bridge and Engineering Co. of Darlington. This was followed by a larger
rigid class shed by Frindlay and Co Ltd of Motherwell, being completed in December 1916.
The usual design practice for airship stations was enforced by aligning the sheds with their length in the
direction of the prevailing wind, so that the majority of wind normally encountered was more or less up
and down the shed – a dead cross-wind was only encountered on rare occasions.
In addition to the patrol station arrangement, another much larger twin shed was also constructed by
Cleveland Bridge and Engineering Co Ltd. The erection of this building commenced in August 1917 and
was completed around 31 March 1919.
The planning of the original station consisted of the two coastal sheds positioned in front of the first rigid
shed on the NE end so that they could act as wind breaks, and projecting out from either coastal shed
was a 700 feet long wind shield or break constructed of steel framing. This arrangement offered
protection to the ship as it left or entered its shed during a cross-wind.
The other buildings were standard single-storey designs, similar to others erected at various airship
patrol stations in the UK, such as East Fortune and Moreton. Buildings were generally arranged within
three main groups, beginning with a domestic series of structures to the south-west.
The main 18 feet wide RNAS service road (aligned SW / NE) was constructed off the Howden–Bubwith
road, and buildings were erected to the north of it while the airship sheds were to the south (a section
was lit by electric lighting, the fittings fixed to lamp standards). Buildings or groups of structures were
served by a nine feet wide road network with passing places, off the main one. The site was also served
by a siding off the North Eastern Railway line from Selby to Hull which left the main line at North
Howden Junction and ran north-west to enter the site north of Howden Station – a distance of 1.5
miles. This crossed the Bubwith Road at the Spaldington road junction; the line crossed the
aerodrome towards the technical buildings and airship sheds. About mid-way across there were three
reception sidings (the largest for twelve wagons) with spurs to the two rigid sheds and the main one
terminated at the coal store.
The aerodrome had maximum dimensions of 3,100 by 2,600 yards and the whole site covered an area of
1,240 acres of which 80 acres was occupied by station buildings. The aerodrome occupied the land to
the south, east and west of the airship sheds, some existing drains and ditches were piped and filled in
and a cinder nine feet wide perimeter track was built from the eastern end of the RNAS road in the north.
Its route went south to connect with the Spaldington Road. Ten mooring block sites were built around
this perimeter, of which one was located on the south side of Spaldington Road, and another to the east
of the Howden–Bubwith Road.
1 The term ‘rigid’ is applied to those airships which have a hull framework of built-up timber or aluminium alloy, covered with a flexible envelope. Nonrigid
types have no such hull framework, and retain their shape only as long as the pressure within the flexible envelope is maintained greater than
ambient atmospheric pressure.
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