I know this has been discussed before but it might be worth another outing. Whilst posting on the Southport Past forum today I noticed that the old Palais De Danse (where Woolies is now) had the world's largest parquet floor.

Similarly we have the smallest pub in Britain in the Lakeside Inn.

We used to have the longest bar in the country in the old Railway Hotel in Chapel St.

We had the longest railway platform - the Excursion Platform that ran from the station to a point half way along where Asda is now.

The Southport Liverpool electric railway was the first electric passenger line in the world I believe.

The first world curling championships were held at the Glaciarium (where the Drill Hall & YMCA are now.

Any others anyone?

I do not know if you have seen the leaflet produced this year by a local group in conjunction with Sefton Council, Leisure Services, Coast and Countryside Service - Sun Sand and Silver Wings ( a history of beach aviation on the Southport coastline). It also forms part of the new display on Southport Pier. It is facinating.

I think there is potential for a world record or a first.

Not many people are aware that the concrete strip opposite the houses on Hesketh Road was the location of a number of aircraft hangers that were in use up to WII (building Mosquitos and flying them of the beach into action)and' that aviation is part of the history of Southport; including Ainsdale and Birkdale Beach.

Definitely something for Past Spot.

Illogical

I remember these hangars.....They were deserted when I knew them in the mid-forties...us kids would cycle around the perimeter and get up a fair old speed on the hilly sandy track that surrounded them....Don't know much more about them though .I never saw any activity there.....

They were still there and in some sort of use in the mid 1960s. In the mid 1950s my mum used to take me down to the beach at the end of Hesketh Rd, which was then a dead end leading to the beach (no Coastal Rd). There was another hangar on the beach there and that was well used (Gyro / Giro / Girauld comes to mind?). Hesketh Rd was littered with concrete tank traps even in the 1960s, which seems to indicate some sort of military use for the aerodrome in WW2 - does anyone have any information about this?


PS: Pedoja - I think you might be better moving this thread to the Past Spot.

The Hangars in Hesketh Road were used as the Bus Sheds for a number of years.

I reckon that 'walk-through' Woolies must be some sort of record, I've been to a few in my time and that is a big 'un - Pedestrian Pat

Woolies used to have a wooden floor long, very narrow strips of wood.

Made a nice noise when you walked on it in yer clogs!

A search on 'google' gives some more info. on the Hesketh Drive
hangars....Apparently they were used by a branch of RAF Hooton
to repair/service Mosquitos at some point in WW2 .The aircraft were flown off the beach but not into action ,rather to be returned to base after repair.....

see www.northwestaviation.org.uk

The hangars at the end of Hesketh Road were originally used pre-war by "Giro" (Giroux, the Canadian airman who used to fly sightseers over Southport.)
During the Second World War, the hangars were used to refurbish and repair RAF aircraft. The site was defended - lightly - by a sandbagged dug-out, equipped with a single Hotchkiss light machine-gun, manned by the local Home Guard. Their idea of security was evidently a bit casual, as the m-g was left in place and unguarded for weeks at a time. I used to spend many an entranced hour there, swivelling the gun while "firing" at imaginary Luftwaffe bombers.
-- Sidney Allinson.
(ex-Christ Church School.)

Around 1960 if you walked along the beach between Ainsdale & Formby you could still see the gun batteries in the sandhills ( I think some of them still had their guns) I used to imagine they were Southports version of the "Guns of Navorone"
Is anything still left of these batteries?
Sidney
Did you write articles for a magazine called "Wide World"?
Phil

"....Sidney
Did you write articles for a magazine called "Wide World"?
Phil... "

Yes, I did, many years ago!
What an astounding memory you have, Phil.
Do tell how you remember about my WW stories...
All the best.
-- Sidney Allinson, Victoria, BC, Canada.

I remember reading that the first scheduled air mail delivery either took off or landed on Birkdale Beach and that Stirling Moss once set a world land speed record there too.

Originally Posted by Jock McP

I remember reading that the first scheduled air mail delivery either took off or landed on Birkdale Beach and that Stirling Moss once set a world land speed record there too.

A quick search reveals: "The world's first scheduled airmail post service took place in the United Kingdom between the London suburb of Hendon, North London, and Windsor, Berkshire, on September 9, 1911."

As for Stirling Moss, I think you may well be getting confused with Sir Henry Seagrave...

http://tinyurl.com/7kgpovl

Good searching! I've grown up with those beliefs and never checked. Looking at dates, it must have been Seagrave; I tdo believe there was some kind of initial airmail service launched off the beach - maybe it was first internal airmail run? And the first transatlantic roundtrip flight certainly left from Southport on the return leg and limped to Newfoundland I think. This link suggests they took Coronation stamps with them to be sold in USA - so maybe that was the confusion
http://www.kg6gb.org/anglo-_american_flight_1937.htm

If you are interested in the story of aviation in Southport and the Lancashire Coast, I can recommend a book called "Sun, Sand and Silver Wings" written by John Mulliner.

During the 1950s early 60s one of the hangers was used as the bus depot, an annex to Canning Road Depot....the other.....on the landward side was divided into two halves....one was used by Girouex to base his Fox-Moth pleasure flight operation....the other was used as a garage for all the Civil Defence vehicles and also the corporation's life saving 'DUCKS' (DUKWs) vehicles during the winter.

Going back to the longest platform I am almost sure it was platform 11 at Manchester Victoria that continued through Manchester Exchange.

http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/m...ge/index.shtml

Originally Posted by Jock McP

Good searching! I've grown up with those beliefs and never checked. Looking at dates, it must have been Seagrave; I tdo believe there was some kind of initial airmail service launched off the beach - maybe it was first internal airmail run? And the first transatlantic roundtrip flight certainly left from Southport on the return leg and limped to Newfoundland I think. This link suggests they took Coronation stamps with them to be sold in USA - so maybe that was the confusion
http://www.kg6gb.org/anglo-_american_flight_1937.htm

It was Seagrave...

Also see:

http://www.centennialofflight.gov/es...oute/Tran4.htm

I used to have an old Guinness Book of Records (50s vintage?) that listed the excursion platform at Southport as the longest.

Originally Posted by Gedsum

A search on 'google' gives some more info. on the Hesketh Drive
hangars....Apparently they were used by a branch of RAF Hooton
to repair/service Mosquitos at some point in WW2 .The aircraft were flown off the beach but not into action ,rather to be returned to base after repair.....

see www.northwestaviation.org.uk

Was actually a very active base during WW2, in the early days of the war Spitfires were delivered in crates and assembled as part of the dispersing of production, later became mainly a repair base for Spitfires, Ansons and Mosquitoes plus conversely the dismantling of aircraft and crating for dispatch to overseas zones, shipping out through Liverpool.

For most of WW2 one half of the dual carriageway section of the Tarleton by-pass was used as a holding area for equipment stores including crated aircraft, everything from invasion gliders coming in from America to aircraft going out to other war zones.

Originally Posted by silver fox

Was actually a very active base during WW2, in the early days of the war Spitfires were delivered in crates and assembled as part of the dispersing of production, later became mainly a repair base for Spitfires, Ansons and Mosquitoes plus conversely the dismantling of aircraft and crating for dispatch to overseas zones, shipping out through Liverpool.

For most of WW2 one half of the dual carriageway section of the Tarleton by-pass was used as a holding area for equipment stores including crated aircraft, everything from invasion gliders coming in from America to aircraft going out to other war zones.

Interesting! As a nipper, in the early to mid 40s, I lived at the end of Ranelagh Drive (Birkdale) cul de sac. The fields at the end of our garden, which is the area now bound by Leybourne Ave and Heathfield Rd. were full of crated aircraft, for much of this time.