ASTON’S FORGOTTEN HOME

It takes a map and a great deal of squinting to imagine Aston Martins and Lagondas being made at Hanworth Park in Feltham, Middlesex, 70 years ago. These days, nature has obliterated the foundations of the hangars, offices and runways where David Brown’s early cars started their lives.

British Aston Martin Lagonda heritage sites are thin on the ground: there’s a plaque in Henniker Mews, Kensington, once home to Bamford & Martin, and Newport Pagnell is well-preserved, of course, but David Brown’s Farsley factory and Bertelli’s 1930s HQ at Victoria Road, Feltham, have vanished. However, the last fragment of Feltham Astons and Lagondas is still standing – just. And so we are gathered at Hanworth Park House, which is in dire need of rescue, with two significant prototype convertibles from Aston Martin and Lagonda: same engines, different stories.

With the goal of acquiring aristocratic associations, Lagondas were photographed in front of the house, and its lawns were Aston’s publicity backdrops into the early 1960s. Senior management was based in a single-storey brick building known as ‘the bungalow’ next to the house. Who knows whether David Brown (Sir David from 1968) dropped in for a quick gin? The Huddersfield tractor tycoon had pocketed the impoverished Aston Martin Ltd for £20,000 in February 1947. Bomb-damaged Victoria Road was included, plus Claude Hill’s tubular chassis with independent front suspension and a new 2.0-litre four-cylinder engine.