I rarely venture into Bedfordshire, but it has some good sites to drone 🙂
Cardington Airship Hangars
The twin 180ft high airship hangars at Cardington were first built in 1916 (110 years ago!) and heightened in the 1920s to house the R101 (designed by Barnes Wallis of bouncing bomb fame) and other airships. Hangar 2 is now Cardington Studios, and has been used for movies that require enormous sets, including several Batman movies.
Stewartby Brickworks
Much of Marston Vale in Bedfordshire was once dotted with huge brickworks, as the same seam of Oxford Clay exploited by the Peterborough brickworks lies close to the surface. This area once had over 160 giant chimneys belching smoke from the countless kilns – but none remain. Brick production, at what was once the largest group of brickworks in the world ended in 2008; the last chimneys were demolished in 2021 even through they were Grade 2 Listed. The drone footage is spectacular!
Adjacent to the now-abandoned London Brick Company HQ is the model village of Stewartby, developed in the 1920 to house some of LBC’s workers, and named after its chairman.
This vast brownfield site immediately to the north of Stewartby is about to be redeveloped as Universal Studios’ first British theme park.
Millbrook Proving Ground
Millbrook proving ground is used by the motor industry to test its new vehicles, in indoor facilities and outdoor test tracks that simulate almost every sort of driving condition. An excellent history of the construction of the facility, and the various test circuits that it contains, can be found here. The huge main circular banked track is two miles in circumference, and is used for high speed testing.
