ON AUGUST 16, 1937, a large crowd of residents gathered to welcome 500 officers of the No.3 Flying Training School, as they poured into Cirencester Watermoor train station.

The pilots were on their way from Grantham in Lincolnshire to take up residence at the new South Cerney aerodrome. 

Arriving in the pouring rain, the soldiers found their accommodation to be temporary huts, with only one hangar nearing completion. 

Their wives and families were temporarily left behind. Regardless, the men seemed in high spirits and eager to explore their new home.

The aeroplanes that began arriving afterwards were met with great interest by passers-by on the Cirencester-Cricklade road, in a time when air travel was still beyond the means of most. 

The Standard reported that: “Not since the dark days of the Great War has such a scene been enacted on Watermoor Station as on Monday.” 

They couldn’t have known then, that even darker days were to come. Just two years later, the Second World War began and the airbase was co-opted for a number of training units.

While there is no trace of Watermoor train station after the last whistle blew in 1961, the airfield was turned over to the British Army in 1971 and is now known as the Duke of Gloucester Barracks.