The expansion of any airport is a crucial factor in any airport’s lifespan. For Bristol (Lulsgate) Airport, ongoing expansions allow for more customers and even this week plans were announced for a further expansion once current work has finished.
A lack of an available expansion would signal the end of another airport in Bristol, the former Bristol (Whitchurch) Airport. Due to housing estates surrounding the site, the decision was made to create a new airport in the 1950s, hence Lulsgate, and Whitchurch Airport closed in 1957.
The now defunct Filton Airport also had a significant expansion during the late 1940s when the runway was expanded to accommodate the Bristol Brabazon aircraft. By the time of the first flight in September 1949, the airport was big enough to support the new fleet of aircraft for if and when it would arrive.
The expansion came at a cost, and a rather large one at that. In order for it to go ahead, an entire village on the outskirts of Bristol was demolished and flattened to build the runway. It was in 1945 that the decision was made to demolish Charlton.
Charlton was a small village which would have been located between Filton and Cribbs Causeway if drawn onto a map today. It was known for having a Bethel Chapel and Sunday school, and according to data from the University of Portsmouth looking at historical figures, it had a population of 425 people between 1870 and 1872.
In 1910, a train station was built which ran along the Henbury Loop railway line, better known today as the Avonmouth to Filton Line. Charlton Halt (halt meaning a smaller station than what is accustomed to nowadays) was operational between 1910 until 1915 when the train line was closed to passengers. When the line reopened in 1922, the station did not.
Maps in the 1940s showed that the B4057 ran through the village, which also had a post office, houses and cottages, as well as a pub known as the Carpenters Arms. Compulsory purchase orders were issued by the Government to buy all the homes in Charlton in order to demolish the village and by 1946, the village was no more.
The residents who lived there were offered council housing in nearby Patchway. It is understood that most residents took up the offer in order to keep community links.
Now that the village was demolished, becoming a footnote in the history of South Gloucestershire and the north fringe of Bristol, the Bristol Brabazon could be developed and the expanded runway used for flights using the new aircraft. The Brabazon Hangar was built as a result.
However, due to the high cost of the Brabazon aircraft, the project was scrapped entirely in 1953 as a lack of market demand forced the cancellation of further developments. But the expanded runway would serve a purpose in the 1950s when developing the Bristol Britannia (which became known for a plane crash in Downend which killed all 15 people on board) and then the Concorde planes in the 1960s and 1970s.
The Brabazon name is used for the development of the former Filton Airport into a new neighbourhood which includes the long-awaited Bristol Arena, now delayed until 2027. Likewise, the Charlton name also lives on in a few different ways.
Charlton Road, where a planned new bus gate will be built, is a key road which stretches into Henbury from Brentry and is located south of Filton Airport. Charlton Common, a public area located to the south of the original settlement, also carries the name forward despite Charlton itself being gone for nearly 80 years.
There are also two housing developments which bear the Charlton name, Charlton Mead (north of Southmead) and Charlton Hayes (near Patchway). In 2023, the latter became a civil parish having originally been part of Patchway.
But let’s take a moment to think about the fact that the village of Charlton was demolished to make way for Filton Airport’s expansion and that now Filton Airport is being redeveloped into housing, meaning soon it will become another named settlement, in a way going back to the start. It is funny what the passage of time can do.
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