A Railway Arch Workshop on the Marshes
In 1909, beneath the brick arches of the London and North Eastern Railway at Walthamstow Marshes, an unlikely aviation revolution began. Edwin Alliott Verdon Roe, a Lancashire-born engineer who had been evicted from Brooklands racing circuit the previous year, rented two railway arches beside the River Lea and set about building something that had never been achieved in Britain: a powered aircraft constructed entirely from British components.
Roe had already designed England's first powered aircraft, the Roe I Biplane, which made its maiden flight at Brooklands on 8 June 1908. That machine, however, relied on a French Antoinette engine. Roe's ambition was more specific: to prove that Britain could design, build, and fly an aircraft using only British engineering.
The "Bullseye" Takes Shape
The aircraft that would secure Roe's place in history was the Roe I Triplane, affectionately named "The Bullseye" after his brother Humphrey's braces manufacturing business. Built initially in the stable of his brother Dr Spencer Verdon Roe's house in Putney, the triplane was transported to Walthamstow Marshes for assembly.
The design was rudimentary by modern standards but ingenious for its time. The triplane featured a triangular-section wire-braced wooden fuselage covered with brown paper backed by open-weave fabric. Spanning 20 feet with a length of 23 feet, the aircraft was powered by a 9 hp JAP V-twin engine. Roe had begun taxying trials in April 1909 with a smaller 6 hp engine, but it was the more powerful motor, delivered at the end of May, that would make sustained flight possible.
First Flights on the Marsh
The flat, open expanse of Walthamstow Marshes provided ideal conditions for Roe's experiments. At the time, the 91-acre site was lammas land; common ground used for grazing cattle and growing crops, largely untouched by the development consuming surrounding areas. The marshes had escaped both gravel excavation and railway construction beyond the viaduct that Roe now worked beneath.
The breakthrough came on 5 June 1909. With the new 9 hp engine fitted, Roe achieved his first flights of approximately 50 feet. The machine responded to his control system: pitch adjusted by altering the angle of incidence of the mainplanes, lateral control through wing-warping, and direction managed by a rectangular rudder.
Progress was swift. By 13 July 1909, Roe had managed flights of 100 feet. Ten days later, on 23 July 1909, he achieved a flight of 900 feet; a distance that confirmed the viability of his all-British design. The local marshes, then in Essex and now part of the London Borough of Waltham Forest, had witnessed the first sustained flight of a British-designed, British-built, and British-powered aircraft.
From the Arches to Aviation History
Success brought its own complications. After his flights proved the triplane's capabilities, Roe was evicted from his railway arch workshop. He relocated to Wembley, where he continued developing aircraft designs, including a second Roe I Triplane that first flew on 6 December 1909.
The original triplane survives today in the Science Museum in London, a testament to the ingenuity born beneath Walthamstow's railway arches. A replica, constructed in 1952, is displayed at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester.
Legacy on the Marshes
The railway arches where Roe changed aviation history still stand in what is now Lee Valley Park. A blue plaque commemorates the July 1909 flights, and on 12 July 2009, a new historic marker was unveiled at the northern entrance to the former workshops.
Roe's success on Walthamstow Marshes was merely the beginning. On 1 January 1910, he founded A.V. Roe and Company with his brother Humphrey at Brownsfield Mill in Manchester. The company, later known simply as Avro, would produce more than 8,300 Avro 504 aircraft for the Royal Flying Corps and RAF. Its later designs, including the Lancaster and Vulcan bombers, trace their lineage directly to those first flights above the Walthamstow grass.
Roe was knighted in 1929 and inducted into the International Air and Space Hall of Fame in 1980. He died in 1958 at St Mary's Hospital in Portsmouth. His personal sacrifice was profound: both his sons, Squadron Leader Eric Alliott Verdon-Roe and Squadron Leader Lighton Verdon-Roe DFC, were killed during the Second World War while serving in the aircraft that their father's pioneering work had made possible.
Today, Walthamstow Marshes is a Site of Special Scientific Interest, valued for its rare wetland habitats rather than its aviation heritage. Yet the railway arches remain, and the blue plaque serves as quiet testimony that this corner of north-east London was once the cradle of British aviation.