Colindale – From High Flyers to High Rises

This article was first published in ‘Best of British’ Magazine in August 2014.

High Flyers to High Rises   Colindale and the Aviation Industry

Colindale in North London these days doesn’t seem much to write home about , it is just another part of the Capital’s sprawling urban growth. Currently it is seeing a rebirth with hoards of apartment blocks rising up with bizarre names like ‘Pulse’. However just under a century ago it was a very small community in the Middlesex countryside, unspoilt by modernity and blissfully unaware of the huge changes that were to change it beyond recognition.

Colindale got its name from a family called Collin who lived in the area in the 16^th century, in basic terms the ‘Dale of the Collin’s’ , and very little existed there apart from a manor house, a farm and some cottages.  By the late 19^th century land was made available for development , and in 1898 Colindale Hospital was built as an asylum for the long term sick of London- no doubt to take advantage of what was then the clean Middlesex country air!

The real ignition for change was the new wonder of the Edwardian age –  the aeroplane.  In 1908 two pioneers, Messrs Everitt and Edgcumbe arrived in the area , using an area of fields and building a wooden shack to house their fledgling aeroplane.  Sadly the two gents were not successful in their efforts to get the plane flying. However another enterprising individual , Claude Grahame-White came along within a year and began to develop what was to become the Hendon Aerodrome, and the area would become very much a focus for the infant British aeronautical community.

The start of World War One put Colindale on the map as a centre of aircraft production, as the perceived value of the aeroplane as an instrument of war was recognised by the British military.  One manufacturer came to dominate the area – the Aircraft Manufacturing Company Limited , better known as Airco. The company had been established in 1912 by George Holt Thomas on the Edgware Road. The Hendon aerodrome was close enough, linked by the rather agricultural Colindale Avenue. By time the war had started Holt Thomas had managed to hire a talented aircraft designer  called Geoffrey De Havilland and secured Government contracts.

Everything was now in place to start production on a very large scale with the number of Airco buildings multiplying , as well as associated aircraft component suppliers setting up nearby. At the height of Airco’s wartime production , the company employed nearly four thousand employees, and were capable to turning out a finished aircraft every forty-five minutes. The largest of the factory buildings was a vast hall built to the latest standards with a steel umbrella roof that didn’t require internal columns- therefore giving an unobstructed factory floor ideal for aircraft production.

Products coming out of Airco’s workshops were very labour intensive, being made of mainly of wood and doped fabric, as well as all the other metal parts, rigging, engines and instruments. Vast numbers of men and women worked away  designing  and producing  flying machines that would end up in dogfights over the mud and slaughter of the Western Front.

The reason why such huge numbers of aircraft were needed was due to a very high loss rate. Aerial combat was a totally new concept, and the pilots were flying aircraft that didn’t take much effort to lose control of. Worst still was the highly combustible nature of the machines.

As production levels rose, so did the requirement to get  large amount of raw materials and finished products in and out of the factory quickly and efficiently. This lead to the construction of a huge loop railway that ran off the LMS main line, around Hendon aerodrome and onto  a level crossing over Edgware Road where it met the largest Airco building.  To underline the enormity of what had been established, Holt Thomas publicised Airco as the World’s largest aircraft factory – a claim that no one ever disputed.

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Caption – In foreground the mass of Airco factory buildings and associated companies, with Hendon Aerodrome in the top left hand corner.

The end of World War One left the aircraft industry with very little to do. Airco found it hard to make the transition to the post war economy, and was sold to the Birmingham Small Arms Company ( BSA) in 1920. Airco’s talented chief designer left the company and set up his own concern under his own name , De Havilland. He was able to acquire some of the assets of Airco and bought land for a factory and airfield very nearby in Stag Lane. They stayed here until 1934 having found a new site in Hatfield, Hertfordshire.  Here they built some of Britain’s great aircraft, including the Mosquito and the world’s first jet airliner, the Comet.

With the aviation industry in retreat Colindale was left with a very large number of empty factories, and these went on to be occupied by new industries. This renewed useage created employment, and lead to further growth in turn over the following fifty years.

The vast space of Airco’s main factory building was purchased by General Motors of America. It was here, in the early 1920s that GM assembled ‘knock down kits’ to avoid import restrictions. Lorries, trucks and cars were churned out ready to meet the UK’s new post-war need for motor transport. By the late ’20s GM had moved their vehicle production to Luton, in Bedfordshire-adopting the now familiar names of Vauxhall and Bedford.

The Colindale factory was then turned over to General Motors ‘Fridgedaire’ refrigerator and freezer products, supplying British homes with a new luxury that eventually became a necessity.

http://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/image/epw019304?search=General%20motors&ref=2

This shot shows the main Airco factory building, in 1927 when General Motors were in residence.  In the bottom right hand corner is the abandoned terminus platforms of the aerodrome loop railway.

As for the other Airco buildings of Colindale, many factories came and went making all kinds of essential items.  These companies included Beardmore Motors, Daimler Car Hire and Repair, Desoutter, Windover, and Phoenix Telephone and Electric.

Sadly as with most of Britain’s manufacturing, the area’s fortunes went into decline by the 1980s. Old industries that could no longer compete in the world market , or just failed to keep up to date closed down, whilst others moved to less traffic congested areas of the South East.

So much of Colindale’s old industrial buildings have since been swept away. The big Airco factory building referred to earlier is now the site of an Asda superstore built in the late 1980s. Other factory sites were built over, increasingly with apartment blocks to meet London’s hunger for homes.

Some remnants of the area’s aeronautical industrial past survive, just. The Airco administration offices , a very formal neo-Georgian pile survives as a Jewish Orthodox School.  Behind it a small set of former Airco sub factory buildings are up for sale, and their fate seems in the hands of property developers.

Over on the other side of Edgware Road the Kwik Fit business betrays it’s size to the fact it was another aircraft factory, and has managed to survive albeit after some re-cladding. A quick peak inside betrays it’s age with the riveted steel construction clearly from a different era. Another survivor is an locomotive shed from the aerodrome loop railway. This now exists in the nearby Montrose Road playing fields as a store house for the gardeners.

When one stands looking around Colindale now, it really is hard to imagine how it was a century ago, as the nation became involved in a ruinous conflict. It was, however, the making of Colindale as it is now- a former sleepy Middlesex backwater turned into a 21st century suburb.

Were not for the Royal Air Force Museum (on the site of the old aerodrome) all memory of Colindale’s contribution to British aviation history would be forgotten. If you want a real flavour of that past take a trip to see it, a number of WW1 era buildings have been preserved, and you can view many aeroplanes of that time too- including a number of Airco machines.

However if you go by Underground, don’t get off at Hendon Central! Its Colindale you want, otherwise you’ll have a long walk!

Link references –

http://www.districtdavesforum.co.uk/thread/6140/page/1/level-crossings

Copyright Mark Amies 2014