Blue sky thinking

A century ago this month, Geoffrey de Havilland founded the Herts aircraft company that would play a major role in aviation history. His legacy is marked by a new £2m exhibition space

- Richard Burton

Lancashire has its cotton mills, Staffordshire its breweries, Cornwall its tin mines and here in Hertfordshire we have aerospace. I was reminded of that as I entered the newly upgraded de Havilland Aircraft Museum. That, and the fact that a satellite launched in February from Cape Canaveral to orbit the sun is just the latest space explorer built by Airbus in Stevenage.

So it was ironic then that, like some rookie pilot who left his goggles behind, I completely overshot the country lane of a landing strip that takes you from the B556 near London Colney to the exquisite Tudor manor that is Salisbury Hall and home to the de Havilland collection.

‘You’re not the first to do that,’ curator Alistair Hodgson told me. ‘We’re a bit of a well-kept secret along this road. It’s part of the attraction.’

The former engineer who had himself stumbled upon the place in the days when, like lots of youngsters, he was captivated by Airfix models, agreed to show me around its latest asset, a giant hangar that was, until a few fateful months ago, set to be the centrepiece of celebrations to mark 100 years of this most iconic of aircraft companies.

The Sir Geoffrey de Havilland Hangar, funded by a National Lottery grant approaching £2m, has added a new dimension to this volunteer-run museum which opened in 1959, making it the oldest aviation museum in Britain. The hangar is bolted to one named after Walter Goldsmith, former owner and restorer of Salisbury Hall, which was opened by the Queen Mother in 1982.