A great success, the inauguration of Broomhall
led to the exploration of opening airfields at
Butlin’s other camps, and the following year
the Skegness Standard reported on the next
development in the company’s aviation plans:
“It is understood that Messrs Butlin’s Ltd
[is] contemplating the use of a strip of ground
opposite [its] camp as a private landing ground
for aircraft, and that the Ministry of Civil
Aviation has suggested that the Council may
be interested in collaborating with Butlin’s in
regard to the use of this landing ground for
people who wish to travel to the town by air”.
Furthermore, Flight reported in May 1948 that
“Butlin’s holiday camps have arranged with
BEA to fly holidaymakers from large towns
with suitable airports to and from the camps.
Skegness is to be included this year”.
The proposed landing ground was at
Ingoldmells, a small village three miles (5km)
north of Skegness and directly adjacent to the
holiday camp. For a short period in the early
days of the Second World War, the site had been
requisitioned as an Emergency Chain Home Low
(CHL) radar station, providing early warning of
Luftwaffe raids on the approaches to Sheffield,
Nottingham and the Midlands. Established in
February 1940, the CHL station was moved to
nearby Skendleby at the end of the year.The proposed plan for an airfield at Skegness
met with little resistance from the locals, Butlin’s
Holiday Village Controller, Col T.B.E. Pearman
CBE, having made a good case for the benefits of
devising a novel method of bringing even more
people — and by extension, business — into the
area. As the Skegness Standard reported in JuneTOP A line-up of the visiting aircraft at
Skegness Airport Ltd’s Grand Air Display
held at Ingoldmells on August 27, 1950.
Leading the line is the company’s own
de Havilland Rapide, G-AKOG, beyond
which is Bond Air Services’ D.H.86B
G-ADVJ and another Rapide, G-ALBC.
MAIN PICTURE With Butlin’s bunting
waving in the breeze in the background,
G-AKOG comes in over Taylorcraft
Plus D G-AHCG to land at Ingoldmells.