In the summer of 1911 Piff was back in Shoreham, but this time he used a large shed on the shingle peninsula known as ‘Bungalow Town’, on the beach front, near Ferry road. Thanks to fellow local history enthusiasts, Howard Porter and Roger Bateman, the bungalow has been identified as ‘Palghar’, and the shed they used to house his hydroplane, was the old Lifeboat House.
Piff’s next designs were forerunners of the seaplane, but the challenge now was to be able to ‘unstick’ from the sea. Flight magazine of 22nd July 1911 reports:-
Harold Piffard and friends with his own designed and built hydroplane at Bungalow Town, Summer of 1911
There is a curiosity hidden deep in the plans and maps of Shoreham Airport… the previous existence of three WWII Pickett-Hamilton Defensive Forts. Are they still hidden under the grass and tarmac? Are they lost?
