1900s-1945
Between Chiddingstone Causeway and Charcott lies a field that, to the passing motorist, looks like any other corner of the Kentish countryside. Yet for much of the twentieth century this ground was Penshurst Airfield, a site that played its part in two world wars and, for a brief but dramatic period, found itself on the front line of the Battle of Britain.
The airfield's story begins in the First World War, when the site was laid out for military aviation. It covered 73 acres, its grass surface measuring 800 by 500 yards. On 8 November 1917, No 2 Wireless School was formed there, teaching the new and vital skill of airborne communication. The courses were intensive: scout pilots and wireless personnel alike completed their training in just one week. Alongside the school, Penshurst served as a depot for wireless stores and repair apparatus, and on the ground stood two aeroplane sheds, each an imposing 130 feet by 60 feet.
The school's work ended when the war did. No 2 Wireless School was disbanded on 23 March 1919, and the airfield itself was closed shortly afterwards, its buildings taken down and the land left to return to quiet rural use.
Aviation did not entirely abandon Penshurst, however. During the 1920s the airfield was used by Winston Churchill, who at that time rented Lullenden Manor near Dormansland. The Robinson family later purchased Lullenden Manor in 1936, by which time Churchill's connection with the area had ended. Through the 1930s the site functioned as a civil landing ground, its boundaries now drawn more tightly at 550 yards by 320 yards, and a single hangar was put up on the south side of the field.
With the outbreak of the Second World War, Penshurst was brought back into service as an emergency landing strip, and the summer of 1940 brought the war to its doorstep. On 23 February 1940 a Fairey Battle, L5005, was forced to land there while flying from Manston to Brize Norton. In early September the skies overhead grew busier still. On 2 September 1940 two Avro Ansons touched down at Penshurst, having been diverted because German bombing had damaged the runway at Detling.
Two days later, on 4 September, a Messerschmitt crashed at Smarts Hill. The aircraft belonged to a unit based at Abbeville in France, and both of its German pilots were killed in the wreck. Later that month, on 27 September, a Junkers bomber came down at Vexor Farm in Chiddingstone, probably flying from a squadron based at Asche. Three members of its crew died in the crash; the fourth survived to become a prisoner of war.
October 1940 saw the airstrip itself in daily use. On the 25th, pilot officer J. Mansell-Lewis of 92 Squadron, then based at Biggin Hill, brought his Spitfire Mk1 in to land after being hit by an Me109. He crash landed and walked away unhurt. That same month Sergeant H. F. Shead of 257 Squadron flew his Hurricane in combat with an Me109 over the Channel and, damaged in the fight, made a forced landing at Penshurst. His brakes had been shot up, and the Hurricane ran off the edge of the airstrip. Two days later, on 27 October, a Messerschmitt 109E4, serial 3525, force landed on the field. The aircraft served with 3/JG52, a squadron based at Coqvilles, and its pilot had come down after combat with Spitfires of 74 Squadron. He, too, was taken prisoner.
Penshurst's role then changed from refuge to operational base. In 1942 the airfield was formally reactivated and opened as home to 35 Wing of Army Co-operation Command. No. 653 Squadron came first, its Austers arriving in September 1942; a detachment of 658 Squadron followed that October and stayed into the following February. In the year after its reactivation the airfield passed to No. 83 Group, and 653 Squadron remained until June 1944, when it departed, its work done in the months surrounding the Normandy landings.
The final chapter came in early 1945. No. 664 Squadron arrived in February with its Auster AOP aircraft, but stayed only a matter of weeks, moving out the following month. With their departure the airfield closed for good, ending nearly three decades of aviation history on this quiet patch of ground between Chiddingstone Causeway and Charcott.