Hovercraft memorial underway

IT has been designed to mark the birthplace of a great piece of British engineering, and now a permanent memorial to the invention of the hovercraft is starting to take shape.

An elegant stone column topped with a bronze hovercraft is under construction at Somerleyton, in north Suffolk, where the craft was invented by Sir Christopher Cockerell in 1955.

He moved to Somerleyton in 1951 and set up the Ripplecraft boatyard in the village where he later designed and built the world's first hovercraft.

The parish council and the hovercraft column committee were given the go-ahead to build the memorial near the village green in 2004 and work has now got under way as the concrete base for the 6m-high column, which will be beside the B1074 St Olaves to Lowestoft road, was set into the ground last week.

Lord Somerleyton, chairman of the committee, said: “I am extremely pleased that the project has reached the building stage and know every effort will now go into early completion.

“It is particularly pleasing that the hovercraft column will stand so close to the centre of the village, a reminder to those who pass that Somerleyton has played its part in our country's rich maritime engineering history, although landmarks to our great engineers are all too few.”

Frances Cockerell said she was thrilled to see work starting on the memorial to her late father and his invention. She added: “I am also very touched indeed by the hard work put in by so many, and the generosity of all those who have made donations to help record this important British achievement.”

Architect James Airy has worked with building firm M S Oakes and Richard Swift of SFK Consulting to design the column.

The memorial is the latest tribute to Sir Christopher. Last year, a £6.5m vocational training centre at Lowestoft College was named after him, and in 2006 a memorial roundel was unveiled on the Somerleyton Estate's pergola lawn where he first tested his new machine.