The Impact of Airfields on the British Landscape

Abstract

IN 1945 the United Kingdom1 contained 720 operational service airfields (including flyi g-boat bases), occupying in total about 360,000 acres. Since the war their number has dwindled to just on a hundred, although a further fifty are still reserved for other military purposes. Of the 570 now surplus to defence requirements, 115 have been converted to proper civil airfields while almost twothirds of the wartime number are disused and in various stages of reclamation, adaptation and dereliction. Clearly, airfields have experienced remarkable changes in distribution and func? tion over the last thirty years, and it is the purpose of this article to examine these changes, both as a broad reflection of developing patterns in aviation, and as a process in the evolution of the contemporary British landscape. Their topographical impact is largely a function of distribution, form and function, and the subject has been tackled under these broad headings.

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