Pulham Pigs Ahoy!

So I've been indulging my inner geek today by visiting an exhibition, at the Pannoyer Centre in the nearby village of Pulham St Mary, about the airship base that was located there during the First World War. The airships, which were both built and flown from the base, were used for patrolling the North Sea and there were some exceptional photos on show, taken by George Hamilton Wakefield who was with the service from 1916 onwards - follow link for more about the photos at bbc.co.uk

The early airships were very basic - with the gondolas slung beneath the gas containers being little more than open-cockpit aircraft bodies. In fact things used to get so cold that the crews' flying suits would freeze solid and they'd have to be lifted out of their seats at the end of a patrol. Later models had enclosed cockpits and the ability to prepare hot food and drinks on a stove heated by engine exhaust fumes.

The base was also the location for some early experiments with parachuting - parachuting in this context involving jumping off high flying things and hoping for the best. What I also found fascinating is the fact that at its peak, there were 5000 people stationed on the base. Today, nearly 100 years later, the two largest towns to where we live in this part of East Anglia still have populations of less then 5000.

As for the Pulham base itself, from Google Maps etc you can see the concrete pads, on which the main hangars and fuel tanks were located, are still in existence however there are chicken sheds covering the site of the accommodation blocks and the two hangars were taken down after the war and reused in the construction of the Cardington Airship Sheds near Bedford. These are still in existence and can be visited whereas the Pulham site is now private property (there is a box factory and a car breakers yard there) and inaccessible.

In case you were wondering, the "pigs" on the poster comes from the local nickname for the airships, flying pigs and all that!