Office At Barton Aerodrome

This is a former airport terminal building, dating back to around 1930. It represents a conversion and remodelling of a late 19th-century farm outbuilding. The building is constructed of red brick with a Welsh slate roof and features three brick chimneys.

The building is a rectangular frontage range forming part of an L-shaped farm outbuilding. It is a single-story structure with a wide, shallow-pitched roof. The north-east front, facing the airfield, has a wide, off-centre doorway that once served as the entrance for air passengers, flanked by narrow windows. To the left of the main doorway is a smaller doorway and three tall, two-light transomed windows. To the right, there is a transomed window, a single doorway, and two further transomed windows. The north-west gable has a central doorway, with two transomed windows to the right and a single transomed window and a recessed doorway to the left. The south-east gable features a wide central doorway and flanking two-light transomed windows. The rear elevation has two groups of three narrow windows, originally used for toilet provision within the terminal building.

The interior was not inspected, but is believed to retain elements of the original terminal plan, including a central corridor with doors at each end.

The airport site at Barton Moss began its development in 1928, with official approval from the Air Ministry in 1929. The airport officially opened on January 29th, 1930, and in June of the same year, Imperial Airways began services connecting Croydon, Barton, Birmingham, and Liverpool. The terminal building housed airline offices, a waiting room, a ticket office, a Customs Inspectors office, the Airport Manager’s office, and storerooms. The conversion of existing buildings for airport facilities mirrors a similar approach used at Speke Airport in Liverpool, though those structures no longer survive.

This building is considered the earliest municipal airport passenger terminal building in England, dating from 1930. It forms part of a unique historic aviation landscape, including the first municipal aircraft hangar, flight control tower, and designated runways, all of which remain.