between 1941 & 1945, 35 Short Sunderland Flying Boats were built here by 1,500 workers living with their families on the nearby Calgarth Estate
White Cross Bay Holiday Park,
Windermere,
Cumbria
With the need to increase aircraft production during the Second World War and with the ever-present threat of combing at the Short Brothers Seaplane Works and Rochester Airport sites the need for another factory, far away from these threats was identified.
The size of Windermere was thought to be the ideal location and the ten-mile length was indeed the best available being many miles from the south coast on England to accommodate the launch and landing of the very large flying boat, the Short SUNDERLAND – a marine search and rescue and submarine hunter.
The Troutbeck Works opened in July 1941 and Francisco Short, grandson of Horace Short became the resident director. The Company built 35 SUNDERLANDS between September 1942 and July 1944.
The factory also became a CRO (Civilian Repair Organisation). They took damaged Sunderlands and put them back together again up to flying service standards as they did at other sites near Cambridge, at Rochester and Belfast.
The need for a skilled workforce was obvious and a modern ‘model’ village was built by Shorts called Calgarth- see photograph. This was a success in attracting some of their skilled workforce north, from Rochester ,to train the local labour drawn from the farms and large houses as at Shorts they were paid more.
The dwellings were built by Shorts and the Ministry of Aircraft Production. They were brick, had ‘modern’ heating, indoor toilets and the latest facilities. The workforce christened them ‘Shorts Palaces’.
Two hundred family homes and hostels for the three hundred single workers, together with a shop, canteen, entertainment hall, primary school, football pitch served the needs of a workforce of some fifteen hundred men, women and apprentices.
This text and photos contributed by by Liz Walker, great great neice of the Short brothers
More information about the history of Windermere and Aviation including the Shorts Factory at White Cross Bay can be found in the Aviation Trials Blog - Windermere's Sunderlands
There are many YouTube videos featuring the Sunderland Flying Boat
Here are links to some of them:
by road on A591
Open access at entrance to White Cross Bay holiday park. Original launch ramp at water edge.
King, Allan ‘Wings ON Windermere’. The Lake District’s forgotten flying boat factory ISBN978-83-89450-82-1
Walker, Elizabeth M (Great, great niece of the Short Brothers) A ‘SHORT STORY’ The Lives and Works of the Short Brothers
Short Brothers Aviation Pioneers
Aviations Trails - Windermere's Sunderlands
