IT IS nearly a century since the Royal Flying Corps left Port Meadow aerodrome in Oxford.

But one relic of that busy period of activity during the First World War remains – a small concrete building known locally at the ‘Target’.

Peter Smith, who has been researching the history of the aerodrome, is hoping that the structure, on the edge of Shiplake Ditch, can be preserved.

He writes: “It is looking somewhat sorry for itself, physically deteriorating and surrounded by mud and water as a result of the ditch being eroded by flood and hooves over the last century.

“It would be good if this last surviving above-ground remnant of the First World War aerodrome, however utilitarian it looks, could be conserved for posterity, before it’s too late.”

Despite its name, Mr Smith, of Arthur Street, Osney, does not believe it was used by pilots for target practice.

He tells me: “It has a door and a window and according to one local resident, it was used by ground crew as a refuge. They laid out wooden targets in the nearby ditch, then sheltered in the hut as the targets were shot to pieces by Bristol Fighters.”

The Royal Flying Corps, the forerunner of the RAF, moved to Port Meadow in mid-1916 and the airfield became a training centre to help meet the huge demand for new pilots.

At the start of the war, the RFC had 63 aircraft. By the end, the figure had risen to more than 22,000.

Having qualified in aviation theory at a School of Military Aeronautics, trainees would be posted to one of 100 training squadrons, one of which was at Port Meadow.

Pilot training included landings, turns, loops, stunting, practising forced landings (landing in and taking off from a small marked circular area), at least two landings in the dark, aerial fighting (dogfighting), bombing, artillery co-operation, photography and use of wireless telephony. Having mastered the basic techniques of flying, trainees then had to learn how to shoot the aircraft’s machine guns and drop bombs.

A makeshift target of chalk lumps in the shape of an aircraft was laid out on Port Meadow near the River Thames for air-to-ground firing training. In some bombing sorties, pilots would drop bags of flour.

The aerodrome’s role as a military training base ended in December 1919 and buildings and hangars were sold in February 1920, but the airfield remained.

As we have recalled, more than 10,000 people attended an ‘Air Circus’ in May 1931, while two years later, the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VIII, landed there when he visited the city to open the rebuilt Wingfield-Morris Hospital, now the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre.

Port Meadow was also once considered as a possible site for Oxford’s civilian airport.