Full article publishing January 2027 — Withington News print & digital edition
Preview — January edition
The first municipal aerodrome in Britain was here. In Withington.
On 28 April 1910, a French aviator landed a biplane in a field south of Alexandra Park and changed the history of aviation. What happened next — and what was built on that field — is a story that Withington has largely forgotten. We are bringing it back.
Louis Paulhan had taken off from London the previous morning. His rival, Claude Grahame-White, had attempted to catch him by flying through the night — the first night flight in British aviation history. Paulhan landed in Barcicroft Fields, Withington, after 4 hours and 12 minutes in the air. He collected the Daily Mail prize of £10,000. The crowd that gathered to watch him land numbered in the thousands.
Manchester Corporation, recognising what had just happened on its doorstep, moved quickly. Within months, Alexandra Park Aerodrome was established on the fields south of the park — the first aerodrome owned and operated by a British municipality. It would operate for sixteen years, hosting air displays, experimental flights, and the earliest experiments in commercial aviation. A.V. Roe — Alliott Verdon Roe, the man who would found the Avro aircraft company and give the world the Lancaster bomber and the Vulcan — conducted test flights from this site.
The aerodrome closed in 1926, superseded by Barton. The fields were absorbed into the city. The story faded. But the mural on Patten Street — the Avro biplane painted on the side of a building that most Withington residents walk past without knowing what it commemorates — is still there. In January, we tell the full story.
“The mural on Patten Street is not decoration. It is a memorial to the moment Withington became part of the history of human flight.”
The January article will cover:
- —The full story of Louis Paulhan's flight — the race, the rival, the night flight, and the landing
- —How Manchester Corporation built Britain's first municipal aerodrome in under a year
- —A.V. Roe and the Avro connection — from Withington test flights to the Lancaster bomber
- —Sixteen years of aviation history on the fields south of Alexandra Park
- —Why the aerodrome closed — and what replaced it
- —The Patten Street mural — who painted it, what it shows, and what it means
- —Photographs, maps, and archival material from the aerodrome's years of operation
The full article publishes in January 2027.
In print and on this site. Free to read. No paywall.
Read the history of WithingtonBack to the front page