Primemeads is an early 17th century oak timberframed farmhouse, with a possible smoke hood and early diamond mullioned window. Brick house with decorative dentil course shows the house built in two phases. It was Listed by Historic England in April 2017. Home to the test pilot Neville Duke – in 1955 Duke set the world air speed record of 727.63mph flying the Hunter WB188.
WB188, the first P.1067 and Neville Duke’s record breaking aircraft
Please note: The aerodrome is private land and an active airfield. Access is not permitted to some of the buildings and features and we strongly discourage access without permission.
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I believe the lady in the final snapshot is Neville Duke’s wife, Gwen, in a fairly obvously posed shot that is very likely to have been around the time of his breaking the world air-speed record in 1953. At one time, I think they had lived in another cottage on the aerodrome, not far inside the main gate on the north side. (I confess something of a personal family connection [although I did not meet them until 1976]: my grandmother, who was a seamstress, made curtains and I think furniture ‘loose covers’ for one of the cottages, and my father used to sell petrol to Neville at the Railway & Onslow Garage in Cranleigh for the Jaguar XK sports-car that Dad said Hawker Aircraft presented to him for breaking the record.)