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Croydon Airport today, is very different from those famous pictures and scenes from the past.
On a recent visit to the site, the following photographs were taken, and descriptions of the changes
accompany them.
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Upon entering the front car park, there is a
de Havilland Heron on stilts.
This Heron 2D, has been painted up as
G-AOXL of Morton Air Services, which was
the last aircraft to make a passenger flight
from Croydon, on 30th October 1959.
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Directly behind the Heron is the entrance to the terminal building, which is now called
Airport House. This piece of frontage is much as it would have been originally. From here you enter straight into the old booking hall area.
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As you walk through the doors you pass
underneath a large model of an HP42, 'Heracles', hanging from the ceiling.
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This picture of the booking hall from a brochure on Airport House, is the best one to show the view you get when entering the building.
An octagonal desk is once where the time zone clocks were, and a Tiger Moth hangs from the ceiling beneath the glass dome.
There is now a large model of the original airport complex beyond this desk.
Display boards around the walls tell the history of the airport and the famous people who used it, including some aviation artefacts.
The doors in the background lead to a corridor and onto the control tower. The entrance to the restaurant Café Rayon d'Or is now present at the far right of this picture.
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To the left as you enter the building is where the General Post Office was. Apart from the walls being moved out into the hall slightly, this is the only original piece of the booking hall left.
Where once the airline offices with their booking desks in front, were on both sides of the hall, the openings have been filled in, and only decorative wooden panels remain where the front of the desks would have been (such as can be seen behind the pillar).
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The rear of the building, which was the airfield side where the aircraft used to pick-up and drop-off passengers, is now a small car park.
The majority of the building itself is intact, however, the small ornamental wall around the very top of the control tower has disappeared along with the famous aerial.
A third floor has been added around the top, as can bee seen in this picture, which rather spoils the look of the building and dwarfs the control tower.
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Closer views of the tower.
Only one small piece of original wall each side of the tower, shows just where the roof line used to be as opposed to where it is now.
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