Brayton Park is situated in the town of Aspatria, Cumberland. It boasts a 9 hole golf course, fishing lake, restaurant and is only about 20 mins from Keswick.
Brayton Hall is a ruined former mansion in Cumberland, England. Once the ancestral seat of the Lawson family, it stood in a large park, with views of the surrounding countryside and the mountains of the Lake District in the background. Located 1.5 miles east by north of the town of Aspatria, and 7 miles south west by west of the market town of Wigton, it was greatly enlarged and rebuilt in 1868. Brayton Hall was practically destroyed by fire in 1918
In 1942, the Royal Air Force (RAF) requisitioned the Brayton Park estate, which afterwards became one of the last two all-new Satellite Landing Grounds (No. 39 SLG) for dispersed aircraft storage to open in Britain during World War II. After a delayed start a considerable numbers of aircraft flew in for storage under the control of No 12 Maintenance Unit at Kirkbride. Officers and men of the RAF were billeted in the main hall and outhouses and within Nissen huts around the grounds. Two main runways were constructed for the airfield; one ran south - east from the main estate and the other ran east - west over the middle of the estate, the whole being enclosed by security fencing and barbed wire. Although Brayton saw several Supermarine Spitfires pass through it tended to process larger aircraft types; and the sight of four-engined Handley Page Halifaxes and Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses were not uncommon. Less familiar residents in RAF service included two other American aircraft designs along with the Fortress, the tricycle undercarriage North American B-25 Mitchell medium bomber and single-engined Vultee A-31 Vengeance, designed as a dive bomber but destined to mainly see military service as a target tug. However it was one of Britain's best-loved aircraft which became Brayton's most numerous resident. Examples of the Vickers Wellington had flown into Brayton right from the beginning of the airfield's life, numbers in time reaching well into three figures. Many were still at Brayton by the end of World War Two in Europe but peacetime then saw these aircraft fairly quickly depart to Kirkbride, leaving their former SLG home to officially close on January 31, 1946.
The estate was purchased in 1939 by Henry Dryden Ward from Wolsingham, County Durham. After World War II his son Robert Henry and his wife Lena moved into Home Farm with their two young sons Dryden and Barrie. The hall fell into disrepair and much of the stonework was taken down and removed to Wolsingham by Henry Dryden Ward, which was later used to build Rogerley Hall on the outskirts of the village.
8 сен 2024
