BBC Two - Brick by Brick: Rebuilding Our Past BBC documentary explores Colindale restoration project (From Times Series) The restoration of two buildings in Colindale belonging to the Royal Air Force will feature in a television documentary. The Grahame-White Factory and Watch Office, in Colindale, both built in 1915, were dismantled brick by brick from their original site in Aerodrome Road, Colindale, and rebuilt at the RAF Museum in Grahame Park Way. The project will be explored in the television documentary, Brick by Brick: Rebuilding Our Past, on Friday at 9pm, on BBC2. The factory was used by the Grahame-White Aviation Company to produce aircraft used during the First World War. After the war, the factory survived by making cars, but in 1922 the Government took control of the site and closed it down. It then sat empty until the restoration project began in 2010. Despite the factory’s closure, the Watch Office remained in use until RAF Hendon was closed in 1987. The building then spent 25 years descending into disrepair, before the restoration project which finished in spring 2011. During the BBC programme, architectural engineer Charlie Luxton will guide viewers through this vast, three-dimensional, jigsaw puzzle and how it pieced the buildings back together. He will also explore the traditional crafts necessary to restore the dilapidated Grahame-White Watch Office to its former glory. Architectural historian Dan Cruickshank also investigates the building's history, discovering the stories it has to tell of the people who worked, slept and played there. These people include Richard Thomas Gates, the Grahame-White factory’s first manager and the first serving pilot to die defending London from aerial attack during the First World War. The programme also features female workers, such as Miss Pilkington, for whom working at the factory was an escape from the day-to-day drudgery of unskilled labour. This programme is the first in a series of three that explore the stories of historic buildings as they are rescued from the bulldozers and rebuilt in new locations. The Grahame-White Watch Office and Hangar is open every day from 10am to 6pm and entry is free. CWGC - Casualty Details GATES, R T Rank: Flight Lieutenant Date of Death: 14/09/1914 Regiment/Service: Royal Naval Air Service Grave Reference/ Spec. Memorial. Cemetery HENDON (ST. MARY) CHURCHYARD Fl Lt R T Gates killed 14th Sept 1914 Hendon - Great War Forum
GATES, R T Rank: Flight Lieutenant Date of Death: 14/09/1914 Regiment/Service: Royal Naval Air Service Grave Reference Spec. Memorial. Cemetery HENDON (ST. MARY) CHURCHYARD
GATES, R T Rank: Flight Lieutenant Date of Death: 14/09/1914 Regiment/Service: Royal Naval Air Service Grave Reference Spec. Memorial. Cemetery HENDON (ST. MARY) CHURCHYARD Richard Gates took off alone at 10.30pm 10th September 1914 in response to an alert from the Admiralty,in spite of being forbidden to fly at night by Grahame White following an earlier crash landing.He again crashed heavily while attempting to land back at Hendon and subsequently died of his injuries.Gates was the first British aviator to lose his life in the cause of aerial defence of Great Britain during the war. from Hendon Aerodrome-A History- by David Oliver
