The launch of the first Windermere Sunderland, 1942. Courtesy Allan King

A caravan park, a school and green pasture land are now all that visitors to the former Calgarth Estate at the Lake District’s Troutbeck Bridge will see.

The unassuming scene belies a busy past, however. During the Second World War this was a thriving village built to house workers involved in the production of Sunderland flying boats. The aircraft played a crucial role in the Battle of the Atlantic, defending convoys against German U-boats and helping to win the war.

The Short Sunderland flying boat factory on the shores of Windermere and the Calgarth housing estate are now the subject of a fascinating oral history project. The resulting website, Flying Boats and Fellow Travellers, paints a picture of a community that was soon dispersed, with the land given back to the owner and the workers and their families packed off elsewhere.

Built in 1941, the village contained 200 bungalows, hostels and a primary school, housing more than 1,500 workers and their families brought from all over the UK to help build the aircraft. In 1945, the village took on another influx, when 300 Jewish child survivors of European concentration camps were brought to stay there at the start of their rehabilitation.

Aerial view of the worker's settlement at Calgarth, c1943. Courtesy Lorna Pogson

Cumbria-based artists Trevor Avery and Chris Atkins, together with local historian Allan King, have worked on the new project gathering recorded memories and photographs of the people who worked at the factory and lived at Calgarth, many of which have not been displayed before.

The idea came about when many of the original Calgarth residents came along to a 2005 exhibition about the Short Sunderland factory at the Brewery Arts Centre in Kendal.

“This intense one year project has led to places as diverse as a flying boat crash site in the highlands of Scotland to Auschwitz Birkenau Museum and Memorial in Poland,” said Liz Rice, Project Manager.

“Wonderful stories have emerged from a range of people, such as the former factory employee who worked on the Flying Scotsman as well as the flying boats in Windermere.”

Interviewee Eleanor Blezard outside the front of her house at Calgarth, c1959, and pictured as she is today. Courtesy Eleanor Blezard

The website tells the touching story of Mayer Hersh, for example, who recalls how he felt to be given his own clean bed and a cabinet for belongings after arriving in England from a concentration camp.

Les Hills talks of how he applied for a job in the Windermere factory after the building he was working at in Rochester was bombed. He was pleased to have the chance to live in a new place. Eleanor Blezard, meanwhile, gives her perspective as a child growing up in Calgarth, with five brothers and sisters. She was among the last to leave the estate, in 1961, when residents were moved on to another estate.

While some may rather forget the industrial intrusion the Lakes experienced in the 1940s, others remember the factory and community fondly.

“People are pleased about the project,” said Liz. “They say, ‘we want it to be remembered, because we had a great life there.’”

The website, www.flyingboatsonline.org, will be officially launched at an exhibition of the photographs in the project on October 27 and 28 2007, at the Marchsei Centre, Holly Road, Windermere. Open 10am-5pm, admission free.