Crayford's part in aviation history will be highlighted with a £50,000 HLF award
An innocuous town on the outskirts of Dartford could be about to write itself into aviation folklore after winning a £50,000 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund.
Crayford, in the London Borough of Bexley, will use the funding to highlights its place in the history of flight in the 90th anniversary year of the first non-stop flight across the Atlantic in a Vickers Vimy, which is believed to have been designed and built in the town.
Sue Bowers, Head of HLF London, said the project would reveal Crayford’s “unique and pioneering role” in aviation history. “It will raise awareness of this overlooked aspect of the UK’s industrial heritage,” she added.
2009 also marks the 115th anniversary of Sir Hiram Maxim’s Crayford-built steam-powered flying machine, which became the heaviest machine to lift itself off the ground in 1894, ten years before the more illustrious Wright Brothers achieved the feat in the US.
Sir Hiram Maxim beat the Wright Brothers by ten years
As the manufacturer of aircraft and armaments supplying British forces in both World Wars, Vickers became the town’s main employer, turning the rural village into an industrial town in a transformation which will be documented through a new website, educational resources and a play on the life of Maxim, as well as an exhibition and specially-commissioned artworks for a new library.
“The funding will enable us to deliver a range of innovative and exciting activities involving the whole community, to celebrate Crayford's links with the early history of flight” said Bexley Local Studies & Archive Centre’s Simon McKeon, a corporate archivist who will co-ordinate the plans.
“I can’t wait to get started.”
