Louis Blériot was the first man to fly across the English Channel and his flight is commemorated by the Blériot Memorial in Dover. The first photo below, showing Blériot flying across the coast at Dover, is actually a fake. Genuine photos of the event are rare or non-existent, many newspapers produced reconstructions with the image of the aeroplane superimposed on a photo of the coastline. This location has been identified as the Ropewalk at Aycliffe whereas Blériot actually turned into Broadlees Bottom close to the Coastguard Cottages. This is as shown on the cover of the book written by Charles Fontaine who commissioned the painting used from M. Etienne Dewinter. It is said to be an exact representation of the true scene. The postcard with the French stamps is obviously another fake montage but is accurate in the location selected, showing Blériot over Broadlees Bottom with the Coastguard Cottages in the background. A Royal Navy pre-Dreadnought battleship is depicted in the harbour.
From an article I wrote for the Dover Express: "Louis Blériot settled painfully into the wooden seat in his tiny aeroplane. He had burnt his foot badly when the engine exhaust cover had detached on a recent flight and was barely able to walk. The time was shortly before dawn on Sunday 25th July 1909 and he was about to attempt the seemingly impossible, to fly his primitive machine across the English Channel. A thickset man with a walrus moustache, he had been waiting several days for the weather to moderate. The winds had finally abated at 2 a.m. and he had been roused from his hotel in Calais and taken to the nearby farm at Les Baraques where he was storing his monoplane in a disused barn. On the way, he placed his wife onboard the destroyer Escopette which set sail to guide him across. Arriving at the farmyard he started the engine and a farm dog was chopped to pieces in the propeller, not a good omen. After a short test flight, he was ready for the off. It was now or never. At 37 years of age, he had made a small fortune from manufacturing automobile headlights but had virtually bankrupted himself in developing a succession of flying machines. The Blériot types IX and X had never got off the ground but with the type XI he had already managed lengthy flights and hoped he could stay airborne long enough to complete the 21 miles across the water to Dover. A rich Haitian planter had loaned him the money for the attempt and Blériot stood to win Ł1,000 prize money put up by the London Daily Mail for the first aviator to cross the channel in powered flight. Speed was of the essence for, close by at Sangatte, a young challenger was also awaiting favourable weather. The sophisticated Anglo-Frenchman Hubert Latham had a much larger and more powerful machine, the bird-tailed Antoinette IV. He had already made one attempt but the engine had failed a few miles out. On this night, nobody had wakened Latham and he slumbered on. Dawn broke and Blériot was off, the sand dunes passed beneath and he was over the open sea. At 40 mph, he soon overtook the Escopette but pressed on regardless despite lacking even a rudimentary compass. His crude Anzani engine rattled and banged away, covering him in a continuous stream of hot oil. No born aviator, he was renowned for the number of crashes he had walked away from, but for ten minutes he had little to do. Then a sidewind sprang up but fortuitously brought rain and mist which cooled his struggling engine. Carried off course to the North, he was relieved to see the coast of England appear in the distance. Seeing ferries below and assuming they were going to Dover, he turned to follow their heading. He knew that the beach at Dover was too narrow for him to land on and his little aeroplane could not fly high enough to pass over the White Cliffs. A French journalist named Charles Fontaine had reconnoitred the terrain and had sent him picture postcards showing a gap in the cliffs just east of Dover Castle, where Jubilee Way now curls down to the Eastern Docks. Buzzing down the coastline from St. Margaret’s, he came to the gap and saw Fontaine waving a large Tricolour. Turning into the gap, the little plane was caught by gusts of wind and whirled around three times. Blériot cut the engine and crashlanded down a slope in Northfall Meadow. It was 5.18 a.m. and in the 37 minutes since he had taken off he had made history. Fontaine ran up and wrapped him in the Tricolour and a crowd quickly gathered. A Customs man arrived and solemnly recorded him as master of a yacht. The Escopette docked and Madame Blériot joined the throng. The little aeroplane was exhibited at Selfridges in Oxford Street and is now in a museum in Paris. Blériot gave up flying after another crash but his company prospered and built the famous SPAD fighters in World War One. He died in 1936 after spending his second fortune. Latham ditched again on his second attempt to cross the channel. Two years later he was kicked to death by a wild buffalo in the Congo. A memorial was constructed from granite blocks in the shape of Blériot’s machine in the exact spot where he landed. In those days, the entire area was grassland. Today the site is surrounded by dense thickets."
Update: This whole area has now been extensively landscaped in preparation for the centenary celebrations which took place on the weekend of 25/26 July 2009. |
