The types
Handley Page aircraft you can see
| Type | First flew | Built | UK museums |
|---|---|---|---|
| Handley Page O/100 & O/400O/400 | 1915 | c.600 | 1 |
| Handley Page Hampden+ Hereford | 1936 | 1,430 | 3 |
| Handley Page HalifaxII/III | 1938 | 6,176 | 3 |
| Handley Page Hastings | 1946 | 151 | 3 |
| Handley Page HP.115 & the research one-offsHP.115, Hunting H.126, Short SB.4 Sherpa, Hawker P.1052 & P.1121, Saunders-Roe SR.53 | 1948 | 1 or 2 apiece | 4 |
| Handley Page VictorK.2 | 1952 | 86 | 9 |
| Handley Page Herald & Jetstream | 1955 | ~90 | 12 |
The firm
Handley Page in brief
The O/400 and the four-engined V/1500 were First World War heavy bombers. The Heyford biplane bomber served between the wars. In the Second World War came the Hampden and the Halifax. The Halifax was second only to the Lancaster in British heavy bomber output. Post-war types included the Hastings transport, the Victor V-bomber and tanker, the Herald airliner and the Jetstream.
Sir Frederick Handley Page refused to merge into the big groups. Without government orders, the company went into voluntary liquidation in March 1970, after 61 years under one name. Scottish Aviation took on the Jetstream.
Where to go
Museums holding Handley Page aircraft
| Museum | Handley Page types | Adult entry | Airframes | Headline exhibit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Royal Air Force Museum MidlandsShifnal, Shropshire | 4 | Free | 78 | TSR-2 XR220, one of two survivors of the most gifted aircraft Britain ever cancelled, sharing floor space with the stainless-steel… |
| IWM DuxfordCambridge, Cambridgeshire | 3 | £29 | 146 | Concorde 101 (G-AXDN), the pre-production development aircraft and the fastest Concorde of them all at Mach 2.23 — plus an SR-71A… |
| Royal Air Force Museum LondonLondon, Greater London | 3 | Free | 88 | Avro Lancaster R5868 'S-Sugar' — 137 operations, the RAF's highest-scoring surviving heavy — under the same roof as a Vulcan, a… |
| Bournemouth Aviation MuseumChristchurch, Dorset | 2 | £10 | 29 | The sit-anywhere policy itself — one entry fee, no per-cockpit charges, a full BAC 1-11 flight-deck sim in a shed, and thousands… |
| City of Norwich Aviation MuseumNorwich, Norfolk | 2 | £9 | 33 | City of Norwich Aviation Museum at Horsham St Faith: Norfolk's largest, ~30 airframes including a Vulcan and Nimrod with bookable… |
| Newark Air MuseumNewark, Nottinghamshire | 2 | £12.50 | 95 | Vulcan XM594, with cockpit tours occasionally given by former Vulcan aircrew, which reviewers describe with the reverence normally… |
| Yorkshire Air MuseumYork, North Yorkshire | 2 | £17 | 54 | Halifax 'Friday the 13th' — the world's only complete Halifax reconstruction, honouring the type that flew from this very field —… |
| Brooklands MuseumWeybridge, Surrey | 1 | £24–£27 | 32 | Concorde G-BBDG, the British production-test aircraft, bookended by a Wellington bomber dredged out of Loch Ness in 1985 and the only… |
| East Midlands AeroparkDerby, Leicestershire | 1 | £5 | 35 | East Midlands Aeropark: a Vulcan, Nimrod R1 and Buccaneer parked on grassy mounds overlooking EMA's runway — half museum, half premier… |
| Fleet Air Arm MuseumYeovil, Somerset | 1 | £21 | 97 | Concorde 002 (G-BSST), the first British-assembled Concorde, which made her maiden flight from Filton in 1969 and now headlines a hall of… |
| Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage CentreSpilsby, Lincolnshire | 1 | £13.50 | 11 | Lancaster NX611 (taxiing now, returning to flight one day, they swear) and Mosquito NF.II HJ711 — the only running Mosquito in Europe.… |
| Midland Air MuseumCoventry, Warwickshire | 1 | £11 | 66 | Vulcan XL360 with cockpit access and volunteer-led tours (ask for the instrumentation talk), plus the Whittle jet heritage collection a… |
| MorayviaForres, Moray | 1 | £8 | 35 | Nimrod XV244 (complete, and the crew who operated her sometimes give the tours) alongside a Sea King in RAF SAR yellow — the machine that… |
| National Museum Of FlightNorth Berwick, East Lothian | 1 | £15 | 47 | Concorde G-BOAA, which flew British Airways' first commercial supersonic service in 1976 and arrived here by barge and giant road-crawl… |
| North East Land, Sea and Air MuseumsSunderland, Tyne and Wear | 1 | £7.50 | 46 | NELSAM in Sunderland mixes Vulcan XL319 (flew in when the airport still existed), a Pucará from the Falklands, trams, buses and a… |
| RAF Manston History MuseumRamsgate, Kent | 1 | £7 | 22 | RAF Manston's history museum spans 1916 RNAS days to Cold War Meteors, with strong 1940s room-sets — and it sits next door to the… |
| Solway Aviation MuseumCrosby on Eden, Cumbria | 1 | £8 | 21 | Vulcan XJ823 with pre-bookable crew-compartment visits; a Phantom, Lightning and Canberra (whose three-crew cockpit reviewers describe as… |
| South Wales Aviation MuseumBarry, Vale of Glamorgan | 1 | £10 | 73 | The resident Harrier and a growing VC10/Tornado-era collection, most with steps and open canopies. Kids exit wearing thousand-yard grins. |
| South Yorkshire Aircraft MuseumDoncaster, South Yorkshire | 1 | £7.50 | 109 | Doncaster's South Yorkshire Aircraft Museum sprawls across the old RAF Doncaster site: dozens of airframes and helicopters, strong… |
| Speke Aerodrome Heritage GroupLiverpool, Merseyside | 1 | Free | 7 | Speke Airport Museum — Speke Aerodrome Heritage Group keeps airliners, including a Dan-Air 748 under restoration, on Liverpool's gorgeous… |
| Stow Maries Great War AerodromeChelmsford, Essex | 1 | £12 | 11 | The aerodrome itself: 24 listed RFC buildings, plus flying examples of Great War types on event days (a Fairey Swordfish cameo got… |
| Sywell Aviation MuseumNorthampton, Northamptonshire | 1 | Free | 5 | Sywell Aviation Museum: a POW-hut-sized, free museum on Britain's loveliest Art Deco aerodrome, where resident Spitfires and a Mustang… |
| Ulster Aviation Society (Maze Long Kesh)Lisburn, County Antrim | 1 | By appointment | 63 | The Shorts family — SC.1 vertical take-off research aircraft included — plus a Buccaneer, Phantom, Wildcat, and a newly arrived AV-8… |
| Wings Aviation MuseumHaywards Heath, West Sussex | 1 | £13 | 25 | The Wings Museum near Balcombe displays Eastern Front and D-Day aircraft archaeology in crash-site dioramas — raw, unpolished and… |
Questions
Frequently asked
When did Handley Page close?
It entered voluntary liquidation in March 1970. It was the last major British maker to stay outside BAC and Hawker Siddeley.
Where was Handley Page based?
At Cricklewood in north London from 1912, with final assembly and flight test at Radlett, Hertfordshire, from 1929.
What was the last Handley Page design?
The Jetstream twin-turboprop. After the liquidation, Scottish Aviation produced it.