The remains of London’s original international airport can be found in Croydon, and the old control tower and entrance hall are open once a month.
Croydon Airport Visitor Centre (c) ianVisits
Croydon Airport was originally two World War 1 airfields separated by a main road. At the end of the war, they were combined to form a civilian airport. The new Croydon Aerodrome opened on 29 March 1920.
While the airport had many famous firsts, probably the one that may sound familiar to most people was Amy Johnson’s famous flight to Australia. When she later returned to England, there was a procession all the way from the airport into Croydon town centre to celebrate.
During World War 2, the airport was closed to civilian flights and became a military field.
Although the airport was returned to civilian flights after the war, the development of ever-larger planes required a larger airport, so the decision was made to move everything to Heathrow. Croydon closed in 1959.
Although the airfields have long since been built on, the control tower and the arrivals hall still exist, and are used as a museum.
The museum is open once a month, but tickets tend to sell out fairly rapidly, meaning it’s likely many of you won’t have had a chance to visit. So today, I am giving you a heads up on when tickets will go on sale for the next open day so you’ll have a better chance of seeing it.
The next open day will be on Sunday 7th July, and tickets will be released for that on Sunday 23rd June from here.
A voluntary donation of £8 per adult over 16 years is requested on entry.
The Croydon Airport Visitor Centre is on Purley Way in South Croydon.
If you are coming by public transport, the easiest way to get there is to catch the train to East Croydon station and then catch the Route 119 bus from outside the station. The bus trip is about 10-15 minutes.
It was 1959, the last flight
Not everything was moved to Heathrow in 1959: for instance, Jersey Airlines flights (to Alderney, at least) moved to Gatwick.