SHOBDON : COCKPIT OF HISTORY (3) Shobdon Airfield

In 1937, following the disastrous circumstances of Edward VIII's Coronation and the descent of the country into the Very British Civil War, the Bishop of Hereford lead the County's Anglican forces into their first and equally disastrous wartime campaign, resulting in the loss of most of the County to HM Government forces and his own imprisonment.

Notwithstanding practical control of most of the County, HM Government then faced a variety of threats and continued challenges in what was known as "Post Bishop Herefordshire". Chief amongst these was the external but immediate threat from Welsh Nationalism, for as a distinguished historian of the early days of the Hereford AVBCW has noted:

"Herefordshire's rural idyll [had] been disturbed by robbery, raids and skirmishes carried out by a number of armed groups. Along the Welsh border, Welsh nationalists [had] been probing the County's defences from bases in Powys, casting acquisitive glances at North Herefordshire, Kington and the Golden Valley, with the eventual view of pushing the border of Wales up to the River Wye and thus reclaiming the Marches...."

Subsequent skirmishes with the Malvern Hills Conservators, regrouping Anglicans and a variety of anti fascist "fronts" produced, according to the very same historian, a complex picture:

"...while the Royalist/BUF authorities still [held] much of the County, their control [was] being slowly eroded around the periphery, with the Anglican League controlling an arc from Ross to Ledbury, the MHC aggressively patrolling the Malverns, the socialists probing into North Herefordshire and the Welsh still lurking along the border. The Royalists [needed] to take bold action to regain the initiative or they [would] find themselves completely cut off from the surrounding Counties....."

Such required "bold action" took shape, in part, by the early conversion of Hereford Racecourse into an airfield. Thereafter, recognising the necessity of diversionary airfields and the particular need for aerial reconnaissance of the Welsh borderlands, the Government quickly identified the parish of Shobdon (amongst others) as an ideal place for a "landing ground". In very short order, the original landing ground was converted into a fully developed airfield [note1]....

Shobdon Airfield

[note1] In the "alternative timeline" (of reality) Shobdon still possesses an airfield, now home of the Herefordshire Aero Club, the Herefordshire Gliding Club and the only licenced airfield in the County. Originally opened very shortly after the outbreak of war in September 1939 as a landing ground for Army Co-Operation Aircraft (Westland Lysanders and Fairey Battles), it was subsequently upgraded to a Glider Training School, training many of the pilots who flew on D-Day or at Arnhem. See HERE and LINK. The Aero Club host a "Food and Flying Festival" in July of each year, at which a variety of familiar VBCW aircraft, together with later types, may still be seen:

Shobdon Food and Flying Festival 2018 - eerily reminiscent of the events eighty years before, in the AVBCW

A landing at Shodon Airfield, July 2018. The precise AVBCW aerial unit that this re-enactor
is seeking to portray is as yet unknown.