Out and About: Bedfordshire’s airship memory

Historian feature

By Ronan Thomas, published 2nd February 2026

This article explores the Cardington airship hangars in Bedfordshire as reminders of Britain’s ambitious but short-lived airship programme. Built during the First World War, Cardington became central to the 1924 Imperial Airship Scheme and the construction of the R-100 and R-101. Celebrated as symbols of technological optimism, the programme ended after the R-101 disaster in 1930. The hangars later served military and scientific purposes and remain evocative landmarks of innovation and loss...

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