Published at 13:41, Thursday, 05 July 2012

A SMALL component from Lakeland’s contribution to the aircraft construction industry in the Second World War has been saved as an historic exhibit.

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Leading aircraft manufacturer, the Short Brothers, built pioneer seaplanes from 1915 at a factory on the River Medway, in Rochester, Kent.

By the Second World War, the threat of aerial attack made it vital to look for a safer place to make the firm’s Sunderland flying boats.

Officials from the Ministry of Aircraft Production decided to disperse some of the production to White Cross Bay on the shores of Windermere.

The huge planes, which could take-off and land on water, carried auxiliary power units for the on-board equipment and it is one of these which has been restored.

It is a Lister air cooled single cylinder engine and was spotted on public show at the Rickerby Park Steam Rally in Carlisle.

The three horse power petrol engine was built in 1937 at Dursley in the Midlands and was salvaged from a Sunderland flying boat.

The engines would have been fitted to an electricity generating set in the flying boat.

The Sunderland Flying Boat was developed in 1937 and was used in the North Atlantic Campaign by Coastal Command to protect the convoys of ships and hunt German U-boats.

The Windermere factory began production in 1941 and at its peak in 1942 employed 1,571 people, about half being local workers.

There was an office, canteen and a huge hangar at the lakeside where three fuselages could be built at a time.

The buildings were removed in 1951 and the site became a caravan park.

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