Cardington, Bedfordshire

infobox UK place
country = England
latitude= 52.1161
longitude= -0.4139
official_name= Cardington
population = 316 (2001 census)
shire_district= Bedford
shire_county = Bedfordshire
region= East of England
constituency_westminster= North East Bedfordshire
post_town= Bedford
postcode_district = MK44
postcode_area= MK
dial_code= 01234
os_grid_reference= TL085475

Cardington is a village and civil parish in Bedfordshire in England, best known in connection with the Cardington airship works founded by Short Brothers during World War I, which later became an RAF base. However most of the former RAF base is actually in the parish of Eastcotts, as is the settlement of Shortstown, which was originally built by Short Brothers for its workers. [cite web|url=http://www.bedford.gov.uk/GetResource.aspx?file=boundaries.pdf Parish map|title=Eastcotts Parish Boundaries ] The old village of Cardington is located to the north east of Shortstown and the RAF base, and houses most of the population of the parish, which was 270 in 2005, making it one of the least populated parishes in Bedfordshire.

Airships, barrage balloons and RAF Cardington

Cardington became one of the major British sites involved in the development of airships when Short Brothers bought land there to build airships for the Admiralty. They constructed a 700 ft long airship hangar (the No. 1 Shed) in 1915 to enable them to build two rigid airships, the R-31 and the R-32. Some 800 people worked there in 1917, most of them travelled daily from Bedford. Shorts also built a housing estate, opposite the site, which they named Shortstown.

The airships site was nationalised in April 1919, becoming known as the Royal Airship Works.

In preparation for the R101 project the No. 1 shed was extended between October 1924 and March 1926; its roof was raised by 35 feet and its length increased to 812 feet. The No. 2 shed (Southern shed), which had originally been located at Pulham, Norfolk, was dismantled in 1928 and re-erected at Cardington.

After the crash of the R101, in October 1930, all work stopped in Britain on airships. Cardington then became a storage base.

In 1936 / 1937 Cardington started building barrage balloons; and it became the No. 1 RAF Balloon Training Unit.

For both airships and barrage balloons, Cardington manufactured its own hydrogen, in the Gas Factory, using the steam reforming process. In 1948 the Gas Factory became 279 MU (Maintenance Unit), RAF Cardington; and then, in 1955, 217 MU. 217 MU, RAF Cardington, produced all the gases used by the Royal Air Force until its closure in April 2000; including gas cylinder filling and maintenance.

The two airship hangars ceased being part of the RAF Cardington site in the late 1940s and they were put to other uses. The fence was moved, so they were outside the main RAF Cardington site.

For many years until around 2001, one of the hangars was used by the Building Research Establishment as a whole building test facility. Here, multi-storey steel, concrete and wooden buildings were constructed and then destructively tested within the huge space available. This hangar was repainted and looked after in comparison with the other hangar.

The buildings tests were mentioned during the course of the BBC series "The Conspiracy Files" as evidence in the controversy surrounding the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 on 11th September 2001 [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/conspiracy_files/]

A company called Airship Industries tried to revive the fortunes of the airship industry in the other hangar in the 1980s, but the efforts ended in failure. The site is currently being used for the development of a new design of airship, the Skycat, by the company Hybrid Air Vehicles. [cite news |first=Reg |last=Little |title=Airship could serve Oxford-Cambridge |url=http://www.theoxfordtimes.net/search/display.var.1754135.0.airship_could_serve_oxfordcambridge.php |publisher= Oxford Times |date=2007-10-11 |accessdate=2008-03-05 ]

In 1993 the musician Paul McCartney used the site for rehearsals [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Band_on_the_Run:_25th_Anniversary_Edition] .

Cardington Artificial Slalom Course (CASC)

The canoe slalom course was the first artificial slalom course in the UK when it was completed in July 1982, having been first discussed in 1972. Based on the River Great Ouse, within the grounds of Priory Country Park and approximately 2.5km downstream from Bedford, adjacent to Cardington sluice, the course has a dual role as both a flood control structure and a whitewater course for canoe slalom training and events.

The course cost £273,000 and was funded by a consortium of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Anglian Water (now the Environment Agency), the Sports Council (now UK Sport) and local councils and was seen as an excellent example of the relatively low cost adaptation of a necessary structure to provide a facility of national significance.

The structure consists of an automatically controlled dropleaf control sluice, 9 metres wide, at the head of a concrete lined channel which connects the upper reach of the river to the lower. The channel is 120m long with a bed slope of 1:100. To create the required water flow pattern, fibre glass boulders known as "hippos" and "dollies" are secured to the base of the channel. The maximum head is 1.7m with a maximum water capacity of 15 cumecs.

Originally seen primarily as a training venue, the course also holds two national ranking canoe slalom competitions per year at up to Division 2 level, and is the host every year to the Inter Clubs Final, which pits teams from all the top canoe slalom clubs against each other for an overall trophy. Running all weekend with camping overnight, the Inter Clubs is the largest canoe slalom event in the UK by participants, a great social event for the sport and one of the highlights of the UK slalom calendar.

The course celebrated its 25th Anniversary in September 2007 with a visit by Frank Branston the Mayor of Bedford. The original project's vision of becoming 'a regional centre for canoeing' has come to fruition.

ites of interest

The church of St. Mary the Virgin has pieces dating from the 12th century, although the church itself was mostly rebuilt between 1898 and 1902.

Film and television

The hangars for the R100 and R101 airships, still stand in Cardington; as does the Headquarters Building. In 1968 some scenes for "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" were filmed at Cardington Hangars.cite web|url=http://www.eetb.org.uk/doclib/Lights,%20Camera,%20Action!.pdf|title=Chitty Chitty Bang Bang] Also during the 1960s, much of the film "Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines" was shot in the vicinity of the village. Hangar 2 has recently been leased to Warner Bros. and used as a studio for film and television productions, including the 2005 film "Batman Begins". "Dark Knight", the sequel to "Batman Begins" and the film "Fred Claus" may be filmed in hangar 2 in 2007.

Notable people from Cardington

*Samuel Whitbread (1720-1796) – Brewer and MP for Bedford
*John Howard (1726-1790) – Prison Reformer, High Sheriff of Bedfordshire

References

External links

* [http://85.12.98.34/BedsCC/xnoteslink/SDimr4.nsf/Web/ThePage/PP-Cardington 2001 Census - Parish Profile for Cardington]
* [http://www.134.org.uk 134 (Bedford) Sqn - Air Training Corps (On former RAF Cardington Site)]
* [http://www.crsbi.ac.uk/ed/bd/cardi/ St. Mary the Virgin Church in the Corpus of Romanesque Scuplture in Britain and Ireland]
* [http://www.aht.ndirect.co.uk/sheds/Cardington.htm The Airship Heritage Trust - Cardington Sheds]
* [http://www.tony-crowe.fotopic.net/c1164388.html Many photos of Cardington Airship Hangars]