It’s hard to imagine now, but a century ago Eastbourne was a genuine cradle of British aviation. The town had its own aerodrome, a busy flying school and a seaplane factory on the beach — turning out aircraft and training pilots from around the world in the daring earliest days of flight. This is Eastbourne’s forgotten aviation history.
A pioneer of flight
Powered flight was barely a decade old when Eastbourne joined the adventure. In December 1911 — only eight years after the Wright brothers’ first flight — Major Bernard Fowler founded the Eastbourne Aviation Company and its flying school, offering lessons on the flimsy Blériot monoplanes of the day. Fowler laid out an aerodrome on the flat, open ground of the Willingdon Levels, on the northern edge of the town near Langney. In an age when aviators were daredevil celebrities and every flight was a genuine risk, Eastbourne suddenly had aeroplanes buzzing over its rooftops.
The seaplane factory on the Crumbles
In 1913 Fowler’s enterprise merged with the Frank Hucks Waterplane Company to form the Eastbourne Aviation Company Ltd, and a seaplane factory was built on the shingle expanse of the Crumbles, down by the sea. From here the company offered pleasure flights — “joy-riding” over the coast in its Farman hydroplanes — from hangars with a slipway running down to the water’s edge. The venture caught the eye of the Admiralty, which took a keen interest and helped fund its expansion, and the flying school flourished, drawing notable aviators of the day to the Sussex coast.
Did you know? The seaplane factory stood on the very site now occupied by the Sovereign Centre swimming pool, just west of today’s Sovereign Harbour marina — where planes once slid down a slipway into the same waters now filled with yachts.
Eastbourne goes to war
When the First World War broke out, Eastbourne’s little aviation scene took on national importance. The Royal Naval Air Service requisitioned the aerodrome and turned it into a busy training station, where more than 120 men learned to fly — among them aspiring pilots from across Britain and the wider Empire. Meanwhile the factory switched to war production, building hundreds of aircraft under government contract, including large numbers of the famous Avro 504 trainer, along with Maurice Farman Shorthorns and Royal Aircraft Factory BE2cs. In all, something like 250 aircraft were built in the town.
Please note: Learning to fly in that era was perilous work. The aircraft were fragile, pilots flew without parachutes, and several young airmen lost their lives in flying accidents at Eastbourne during the war years — a sobering side to this pioneering story.
Famous flyers and far horizons
The Eastbourne connection reached surprisingly far. One trainee, Dan Minchin, learned his skills on a Bristol Boxkite at the aerodrome; in 1927 he set out to fly the Atlantic and was tragically lost when his aircraft vanished on the crossing. Fowler himself travelled to Japan in 1921 as part of a British mission to help establish and train the flying branch of the Imperial Japanese Navy. There were local links, too: among those involved in the company’s financing was Charles de Roemer of nearby Herstmonceux.
What remains today
The great days of Eastbourne aviation didn’t last. Regular flying ceased in the early 1920s, and the company was wound down, its assets sold off by 1924. Today there’s little left to see: the old airfield lies beneath an industrial estate below St Anthony’s Hill, and the seaplane factory site is now the Sovereign Centre. A single original Royal Naval Air Service guardhouse survives, tucked away in Leeds Avenue and long since converted into a home. But the story lives on in one glorious modern echo — every August, the skies above the same seafront thunder once more with aircraft for Airbourne, the Eastbourne International Airshow. A century on, the town has never quite lost its love of flight.
Eastbourne aviation history: FAQs
Did Eastbourne really build aeroplanes?
Yes. The Eastbourne Aviation Company, founded in 1911, ran an aerodrome and flying school and built around 250 aircraft — including Avro 504 trainers — at its factory during the First World War.
Where was Eastbourne’s aerodrome and seaplane factory?
The aerodrome was on the Willingdon Levels near Langney, and the seaplane factory stood on the Crumbles by the sea — on the site now occupied by the Sovereign Centre, near Sovereign Harbour.
Is anything left of Eastbourne’s aviation past?
Very little. The airfield is now an industrial estate below St Anthony’s Hill, and the factory site is now the Sovereign Centre. One original RNAS guardhouse survives in Leeds Avenue, converted to a home.
Who founded the Eastbourne Aviation Company?
Major Bernard Fowler established it in December 1911. It later merged with the Frank Hucks Waterplane Company in 1913 to become the Eastbourne Aviation Company Ltd.
Discover more: the modern Airbourne airshow, the marina at Sovereign Harbour, and the wider history of Eastbourne.