RAF Kingstown

Kingstown airfield opened in the 1920s and was turned into Carlisle Municipal Airport in the 1930s, being located a little outside of teh city. However, it was underused and was sold to the Air Ministry in 1936 becoming RAF Kingstown and became home to Fairey Battle bombers. The runways though were short and could not be extended and the airfield switched to training use through WWII. The base was initially closed in 1945 but was reactivated in the 1950s as RAF Carlisle serving as a maintenance unit but finally closed to flying in 1957 but remained as an administrative base until 1994 with final closure two years later. Today the area is an industrial estate although there is a memorial commemorating the area's prvious use. The final gate guard that used to be on site is the Phantom that I saw at Solway last year.