SUNDAY 25 AUGUST 2019The unsung hero of aviation
Heathrow may be celebrating the centenary of BA’s first commercial
flight, but it was Croydon in south London that was home to the first
modern airport, argues Lottie Gross
The airport is where UK's aviation blossomed (Photography by Lottie Gross)
I don’t make a habit of hanging around on industrial estates in Croydon. But there is one I just have to keep
coming back to.
Not because it’s known for more of this south London town’s love-it-or-hate-it Brutalist architecture, but
because, unassumingly plonked on Purley Way, among a Chinese hypermarket and a drive-thru Costa
Coffee, is London’s first ever international airport.
It might seem a tall order for Croydon to be home to such an integral part of an industry that is today worth
over £2 trillion. But from the 1920s until 1959 it was, and the white Art Deco building that remains today is