Yellow Kite Cafe takes off at Southsea Castle

Free entry to Henry VIII’s seaside bolthole is the icing on the cake as Yellow Kite Café opens its flagship venue at Southsea Castle on Saturday 14 May.

Cllr Lee Hunt, Cabinet Member for Culture said: “I’m delighted at this new venture with social enterprise company, Yellow Kite, which means visitors will no longer be charged to look around Southsea Castle.

“The new addition of a café within the walls of the castle is a real treat and another excuse to pay a visit. I’m sure Henry VIII himself would be delighted with all attention being paid to his historic legacies, such as the impressive development of the Mary Rose museum, and now the cafe at this much loved castle.

“The free entry is small token for our residents especially, and we hope many people take the opportunity to visit this impressive landmark, and of course try the refreshments at the new café.”

Funded by the Healthy Towns initiative, the Yellow Kite Café is a social enterprise, not for profit company, aimed at providing great food and good value for local communities.

The western bailey of the castle has been refurbished to house new 60 seat contemporary café, revealing previously unseen Tudor walls.

The Yellow Kite café, which also has a café at the D-Day museum, boasts a daily menu which includes such delights as fresh home made soup, cheese and chorizo omelettes and cream teas with raspberry scones.

Gambol Parker, chief executive said:  “Yellow Kite is a social enterprise which means we’re about serving great healthy food which is also good value for money. And because Yellow Kite is a social enterprise, it means the money we make gets ploughed back into the local community.”

The castle is open eight months of the year from every Easter, and the cafe will be a permanent addition during these times. The café will be open everyday, except Monday until the end of October and has a string of special events lined up for the summer.

More info on the Castle and other historic places to visit in Hampshire

The Cody Replica which first flew in 1908 from Farnborough

No other location in the world has contributed so much to the development of aeronautical science over more than a century than Farnborough, Hampshire.

This site is recognised internationally as the home of British aviation, where the first attempts to gain mastery of the air were achieved as a result of outstanding efforts by a small team of dedicated engineers, military administrators and self-taught pioneers. Their initial success led to the research and development base, the Royal Aircraft Establishment that went on to make an enormous to winning the Second World War and taking the industry into the Jet age, changing the world we live in today.

Since 1993, the Farnborough Air Sciences Trust, a registered charity has campaigned successfully to save the most important buildings on this site, and make available to the public the story of Farnborough’s unique aviation history and the air science that it spawned. In 2003 FAST opened a new museum in the original Army Balloon School Building (which later saw the formation of The Royal Flying Corps in 1912). Since then, the trust’s collection of aircraft, artefacts, records and major exhibits has expanded considerably and in 2008 a new Cody Pavilion was opened to celebrate the centenary of SF Cody’s first flight anywhere in the UK in 1908. As well as a highly accurate full size Cody Flyer replica, built in just 18 months by FAST volunteers using representative materials, the pavilion tells the complete story of the life and achievements of this amazing American-born pioneer.

THE DAWN OF AERONAUTICS

In the Victorian era, Britain maintained a global Empire, with the World’s largest Navy and Army. Air Power was still in the future but aeronautical progress in other countries could not be ignored and the British Army started balloon experiments in 1878 at Woolwich Arsenal .  In 1882 this moved to Chatham and a Balloon School was established nearby. In 1890 the balloon Section, Royal Engineers, was formed and moved again, this time to South Camp, Aldershot. It soon outgrew this site and so the Royal Engineers balloon School transferred to nearby Farnborough.  The new Balloon School was built in 1904-05.  Farnborough was established as Britain’s main aeronautical centre for research and development and, during the First World War, also served as a factory for the construction of complete aircraft.  Throughout the rest of the 20^th Century this became the heart of a massive expansion of experimental workshops, laboratories, test cells and aircraft hangars.

This is a fantastic FREE museum run totally by volunteers who are keen to answer questions regarding the many exhibits including hands-on flight simulators that children can have a go at.

The exhibition halls in the museum display many historic jet engines and components, tested by jet pioneer Sir Frank Whittle, including a complete W2 engine from the Gloster E28, the first British jet aircraft to fly and the after-burning rear section of the first supersonic engine intended for the Miles M52 experimental high speed research aircraft (later cancelled).

In October 2008, the new Cody Pavilion was opened to house the full-size replica of Cody’s British Army Aeroplane No 1A – celebrating the centenary of British powered flight.

The prototype two-seat Jaguar B was used for many years at Farnborough for test purposes.  It had been built as the first of 200 Anglo-French Jaguars purchased by the Royal Air Force and serving from the 1970s until 2007.

The museum is open ONLY weekends and Bank Holidays, make it one on your list to visit. See more on The History of Aviation.