Cramlington Airship Station

55°05'42"N 001°36'05"W

Runway: flying field, grass

Cramlington Airship Station was an airfield 450 kilometers north of London.
The station was intended to become a Class D airship station, for the operation of SSZ craft by 18 (Operations) Group. It was built across the railway line northeast of Cramlington airfield as a long term solution for temporary airship facilities in the area. A roughly triangular area of land was cleared to provide a landing ground and work on the construction of a technical site began in the south east corner.
The station was not completed by the time of the Armistice of World War I in late 1918. Work continued on the construction of the planned airship shed however. It was to measure about 100x35x25m on a NE-SW axis, aligned with the prevailing wind.
According to monthly listings of the RAF, the station had control of a mooring-out site at the Kirkleatham  (east of Middlesborough) between January and April 1919. They operated two flights of SS Twin airships from it.

In the 1920s, Airship Development Co. built a small airship registered G-FAAX, which on 5 October 1929 made an appearance at the Newcastle Air Pageant held at Cramlington Aerodrome . It stayed in the hangar at least one time during the event.


Non-rigid gas-filled advertising airship AD.1 G-FAAX inside the Cramlington Airship Shed in 1929 (Flight International).


The airship hangar in relation to the former airfield across the railway line, presumably around 1950 (Airfieldinformationexchange.org).

I did not find any further reference to the airship station after the 1929 pageant at the nearby airfield. What is known, is that the airship hangar still existed ca. 1950. Today, nothing remains of the former airfield, which is now built over by an industrial district.


Position of the photograph above in 2009 (Goolge Earth)

Parts of the research for this airfield were done by Mr. Mick Davis