RAF Cardington started life as a private venture when Short Brothers bought land there to build airships for the Admiralty. They constructed a Template:Convert-LoffAoffDbSmid Airship hangar (the No. 1 Shed) in 1915 to enable them to build two rigid airships the R-31 and the R-32. Shorts also built a housing estate opposite the site which they named Shortstown. Most of the former RAF station is actually in the parish of Eastcotts as is the settlement of Shortstown.
