The Parish Clerk at Whitfield - aka my darling wife - has just uncovered an interesting fact that she was previously unaware of, namely that Whitfield had an aerodrome in days of yore, and one that turns out to have had historical signficance. It transpires that one Harriet Quimby, the first woman to fly the English Channel, took off from Whitfield Aerodrome on her historic flight in 1912; news of this historic event was overshadowed by the Titanic disaster and so her achievement never received the accolade it merited. I, for one, had never heard of Harriet Quimby until Michelle told me about it - and I'd be quite surprised if many of my fellow forumites had either.
Michelle is looking for any information and/or pictures relating to Whitfield Aerodrome which could be used on the Whitfield Parish Council website; if any forumites have any knowledge of, stories about, or photos of Whitfield Aerodrome, she would be very grateful if they would contact her - full accreditation for info & photos will, of course, be made on the website. Her email address is
whitfieldpc@btconnect.com and I know she'd be very grateful to hear from you.
Derek Leach of The Dover Society has spoken with her about it and has led her to understand that the aerodrome was in the vicinity of what is now The Archer pub, and that's all she really knows about it. Anyone got anything further? There's nothing of value about it on the internet....
For the full story on Harriet Quimby, here's the link to her Wikipedia entry - it makes interesting reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_Quimby