Filton and the Flying Machine: Images of England

From trams and trains and buses to … Concorde. This is a story in photographs of the erstwhile Victorian farming villages of Filton and Patchway in Gloucestershire, through their metamorphosis into the urban communities of the supersonic era. It reflects the changes which have taken place as the century advances, paramont along which was the arrival of aviation in 1910, when Bristol businessman Sir George White chose Filton as the home for his new enterprise, the British and Colonial Aeroplane Company. Included is the sad history of Charlton, elbowed out of existence by the Brabazon, which subsequently became a victim itself. Although also gone, another prominent player on the Filton aviation scene was the Royal Air Force. For nearly three decades, this meant 501 Squadron, formed in 1929 as a Reserve Squadron and manned largely by part-time volunteers. As one of the RAF’s leading fighter squadrons, it played a distinguished part in the way, returned to a ‘weekend’ basis in 1946 and was finally disbanded in 1957.