Port Meadow, in the north-west corner of Oxford by the River Thames, is a 300-acre floodplain that has been pasture for approximately 1,000 years, if not longer. The land is scattered with Bronze Age burial mounds and evidence for Iron Age settlement, and the site has been a Scheduled Ancient Monument since the 1970s. While this listing (www.historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1010717) documents many of the meadow’s prehistoric features, it fails to mention that it also contained a First World War flying training aerodrome at its northern end, near Wolvercote. This was not a small complex to ‘forget’: built in early 1916, by 1918 the site accommodated more than 800 trainees and personnel, with more than 60 aeroplanes using 11 hangars and other largely temporary buildings. But after the aerodrome buildings and structures were sold and dismantled in 1920, all obvious traces of it vanished and its story largely faded from collective memory.
Today, the meadow – an important ‘green lung’ for Oxford – is more frequently visited by dog walkers, fishermen, and other leisure seekers. But in 2015 the Wolvercote WWI Aerodrome Memorial Project was set up to raise awareness of the locale’s less well-known heritage, and to erect a stone memorial to the 17 airmen who were killed in flying accidents while training on or visiting the meadow between 1917 and 1918 (nine are buried locally). This latter aim was achieved thanks to funds raised by public subscription, and the memorial and information board were unveiled in May 2018 – the centenary of the death of one of the pilots. The community project’s remaining funds were then dedicated to carrying out a survey to see whether anything survived of the aerodrome below ground.
The complex’s appearance was not a mystery: aerial photographs from 1918 provided a detailed layout of the buildings when they were still standing, but we wanted to establish if anything remained beneath the surface. Even though it looks the same, there is a difference between a field where there had once been something, but now has nothing, and the same field where people know there are surviving remains, even if they cannot be seen. So how should our investigation proceed? No traces of the demolished aerodrome buildings are visible in modern aerial photographs, only a small concrete shelter – which was erected to the east of the main building complex as a refuge to protect the ground crew who set up nearby targets for aerial bombing and shooting practice – and the line of the access track could be seen in these images. LiDAR also failed to show any sign of the main complex, and excavation was not a practical option due to the site’s scheduled status. It was deemed too risky to potentially fragile remains, as well as being beyond the community group’s means. With these avenues quickly exhausted, geophysics looked like our best and probably only option.
