please empty your brain below

"27 Miles to Croydon" the aerial sign reads at the dairy farm. Does anyone know why (other than it might be 27 miles to Croydon)?

"Antoinette Court" the sign reads. Very good, the suspense heightens. It can't be long now till the eagerly awaited Versailles report (surely?)
The Croxley Windmill was once surrounded by glorious fruit orchards. After a protracted legal wrangle, the land was sold, much to the sadness of the windmill's owner. I've spent many a happy childhood day in the windmill and its associated garden/house: its owners are Croxley folk of many generations and indeed the family still have another farm not far away. The Croxley of yore still lives on.
Fabulous travelogue, you must've spent hours researching all this.
27 miles to Croydon -- from the days when Croydon was London's airport, surely.
The Cock at Sarratt Church is a favourite watering hole of mine, on a walk I've done often from Watford to Chesham. Worth a lunchtime visit!
Alan I did briefly wonder about Croydon Airport, but still couldn't see why there might be a distance sign to it from here. Are you suggesting it was for the benefit of pilots/ passengers arriving from the north of England etc? I'd has thought such aircraft would have been too high to see this sign. Perhaps they flew much lower in the those days?

Still mystified.
@ Lorenzo
I've just had a look at the aerial photo and am pretty sure that is a direction sign for aircraft heading for Croydon, which as Alan says, was London's major airport.
They did fly lower then! Plus they often had no radio. Fifty years ago I lived on the hill opposite Luton Airport and remember that it had a sort of "lighthouse" beacon that flashed a Morse Code "L" in green.
Piston engine aircraft did generally fly much lower, I'm not even sure when pressurised cabins became the norm - possibly with the Comet? (certainly it was one of the first to encounter problems with pressurised fuselages) (Quick Google, the first pressurised airliner in commercial service was in 1938)

But whether the Ovaltine factory was anywhere near a flight path (did they have air traffic control in those days?) I wouldn't know. There are certainly several examples of advertising under the Heathrow approach path.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.4877572,-0.3022363,280m/data=!3m1!1e3

Slightly different: the letters NO and LH painted on two similar-looking gasometers in Harrow and Southall, apparently after a 737 landed at RAF Northolt instead of Heathrow after mistaking one of them for the other.
Looking at the aerial photo of the dairy farm, which I'm sure everyone has done by now, I notice that the sign alluded to in earlier comments is evidently a most intriguing sign, clearly with some purpose, and yet, as you say, that purpose is somewhat opaque, perhaps it was a warning to pilots, or a waymarker for passengers, maybe even simply an advert for the farm in the unlikely case that British Aerofilms flew over, presumably in one of their aircraft, of which they had several.

And I notice that the photo was taken in 1937, so I wonder if the year is somehow relevant, perhaps some event was taking place, and another mystery is why the sign is facing the main road, because this is not the direction you would be flying if you were going to Croydon, which is to the left of the photo, 27 miles away I believe, the whole thing is quite baffling, it would certainly be fascinating to debate this at some length, I wonder if anyone has any thoughts on the subject, it's all very relevant.

But at least they got the apostrophe in King's Langley correct, that's between the 'g' and the 's', which is the right place for an apostrophe, indeed I can only imagine the flurry of comments which might have arisen if the apostrophe had been omitted, or wrongly positioned, and what people might then have said, that's in addition to all the other comments they've already made about the sign, the one that mentions Croydon, after looking at the aerial photo of the dairy farm, which I'm sure everyone has done by now.
In the early years of flying, pilots did indeed navigate by land waymarks and often by following railway lines, which were often the most direct and recognisable routes between two places. The west coast railway tracks at this point would have been on a route between the North and Croydon Airport.
I lived in Watford in the 50s and 60s in Swiss Avenue by Cassiobury Park. Used to go on the train from Watford Met to Croxley Green to go to school at Rickmansworth Grammar. Have enjoyed this travelogue by DG. Makes me want to go back And visit the area, especially on the soon to be ended underground service to Watford Met.
Another fascinating post - have been to all three pubs in Sarratt and interestingly was at The Boot for lunch on Monday - hence my lateness in reading your daily digest. There was at one time a fourth pub just down from The Boot.This is my favourite area for summer walks as I'm a fair weather walker - admire your walking over muddy fields. looking forward to Part 3.
As ever, a fascinating piece DG. However, I am fairly certain Germany should read Switzerland (Berne) as the origin of Ovomaltine.

dg writes: You are correct, thanks.
You mention the first Duke of York, Edmund of Langley.
King's Langley Palace was built by his great-grandmother, Eleanor of Castile (she of the Crosses). Her son Edward, the first Prince of Wales, spent much of his childhood there and, after becoming King (Edward II), built the priory, where his lover, Piers Gaveston, was buried after his execution (or lynching, depending on whose side of the argument you favour).
@ Timbo, There were in fact 2 incidents at Northolt before 737's had been invented.
Pan Am 707 succeeded in 1960, and Lufthansa tried 4 years later, being shooed off by a red flare. The gasometers being painted NO and LH created the yarn that LH stood for Lufthansa!
The Pan Am aircraft had to be stripped off all unnecessary weight before the embarrassing take off.










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