VICKERS FACTORY - Kent (Darford,Crayford)?

[Neil Clark]

I am interested in establishing the exact former whereabouts of the two Vickers munition factories in the Dartford area of Kent. I presume there was TWO?

The Crayford site was used by Vickers to produce small arms, the Dartford Marshes site for ammunition?

I found this online

Following on from Hiram Maxim's experiments with flight, the Crayford based firm of Messrs Vickers Ltd decided, in 1910, to get more actively involved in the pioneering field of aviation. The company purchased land at Dartford Salt Marsh in 1911, with a view to constructing a rudimentary airfield suitable for the testing of prototype aeroplanes. The site they chose comprised a number of small fields, separated by drainage ditches. It was bounded on the west by the River Darent, and on the east by Joyce Green Lane which led to the embankment of the River Thames and Long Reach Tavern. No proper runway was constructed: instead, aeroplanes were expected to take off from grassy fields. Drainage ditches which constituted dangerous obstacles were boarded over, opening up a large expanse of grassland for take-off and landing.

Among the many designs initiated by the Drawing Office at Vickers was one that became known as the 'Hydravion', based on the notion that an aeroplane should be able to take off from water as well as from land. Floats, made of the alloy known as Duralumin, were apparently made at the company's Dartford works and tested in the nearby River Darent. Archives retained at company headquarters imply that the Hydravion would be constructed at Dartford. In reality this would be difficult given that at that time the Dartford factory was only producing explosives and projectiles.

The fields used by Vickers at Joyce Green still exist today but are now used for farming.

Joyce Green was an early RFC airfield used for pilot training.

I have already pinpointed the location of RFC Joyce Green here -

 

[KONDOA]

Tower Retail Park now occupies the site.