Bleriot Memorial

The first person to fly the English Channel in an airplane was a Frenchman called Louis Bleriot. The flight took place on 25 July 1909 and won Bleriot a prize of £1,000 from the Daily Mail. An earlier attempt five days earlier, by Englishman Herbert Latham, had ended when he had ditched in the sea.

Mark Hazleton at the Bleriot Memorial View of Dover Castle from road to Bleriot Memorial Mark, Marlis, Ian, and Berit Hazleton on the Bleriot Memorial near Dover Castle.  After making the first channel flight by aeroplane, Louis Bleriot landed at this spot on Sunday 25th July 1909.  This memorial was presented to the Aero Club of the United Kingdom by Alexander Buckham.

Bleriot, a motorcar headlamp manufacturer, had injured his foot and walked to his plane with the aid of crutches. He took off at 4.37am and, guided by smoke from a French destroyer, he spotted St Margaret’s Bay. Turning towards Dover he was caught by the wind and made a crash landing in Northfall Meadow, behind the Castle, breaking the undercarriage and propeller. The whole journey had taken 20 minutes.

A memorial in the form of a stone silhouette of Bleriot’s plane is set into the ground at the place where he landed.

Here is an aerial view from Google Maps (Scroll down to see Dover Castle


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