Croydon Airport was the UK’s only airport in the interwar period, and opened in 1920, and featured the worlds first Air Traffic Control tower, and the worlds first airport terminal.

This model is hanging in the terminal, near the tower.

Unfortunately the building was converted into offices at some point after it closed in 1959, and much of it looks the part, but the museum is open once a month and gives you a chance to see what was once the worlds first fully purposebuilt commercial airport.

Heracles, the plane, was one of a number of Handley Page planes operated by Imperial Airways in the 1930’s. Heracles flew from 1931 to 1940, when it was destroyed in a gale. By 1937, it had accumulated 1 million miles of service.