For a full account read "Somewhere in the West Country" by Ken Wakefield, Crecy Publishing Ltd 1997, but meanwhile here is a brief history:

In 1927 a group of Bristolians raised £6000 and formed a Flying Club at Filton Aerodrome, an RAF airfield used by Bristol Aeroplane Company. With the revival of RAF reserve activity including the formation in 1929 of 501 (City of Bristol, later County of Gloucester) Squadron flying Avro 504s and DH9s, the airfield was becoming crowded, so the club approached Bristol Corporation with the idea of a municipal airport elsewhere.

In 1929 the Corporation formed an Airport Committee which bought 298 acres of farmland at Whitchurch for £15,500. It was the Depression, and outdoor relief grants were obtained for clearing the land. The Secretary of the Bristol and Wessex Aero Club became the first Airport Manager, and managing committee members included Cyril Uwins, the BAC chief test pilot, as well as City Councillors. The Airport was opened by the Duke of Kent in May 1930, and as well as club and private flying, 915 passengers were carried in the first year. It was only the third municipal airport in the country, after Croydon in Surrey and Heston in Middlesex. By the end of the year, Whitchurch was a Customs airport, Airwork had opened a Service Depot, and seven private aircraft were based there. The buildings were at the south-east corner of the airfield, accessed from Whitchurch Lane until Airport Road was built, when a private access road was built on the east side of the airfield.

For the next nine years the airport gradually increased its activities with scheduled services mostly using aircraft like the DH Dragon Rapide on domestic and near-Continent routes, with club and private flying and the occasional display event. By 1939 annual passengers were about 4000.

With the war in 1939, Whitchurch Airport was requisitioned by the Air Ministry. Airlines including Imperial Airways (later BOAC) and KLM moved from Croydon, with HP42, DH Albatross, DH Flamingo and Armstrong-Whitworth Ensign 4-engined airliners. Whitchurch became for a time Britain's only operational civil airport, receiving VIPs with the highest secrecy and security. Airline services were mainly to Lisbon and to Foynes, the Irish seaplane terminal for transatlantic flights. By 1943 North African destinations were added.

Five large hangars were built on the north side of the airport during the war. Paved taxiways and the east-west runway 3048 feet long were completed by the end of 1941. This allowed most RAF (and later on, USAF) types to visit, usually staging through on delivery flights. Whitchurch was home to No 2 Ferry Pool, ATA, which as well as ferrying RAF aircraft between units, had its own large fleet of small passenger aircraft such as Avro Ansons for military air-taxi work. Douglas DC3s were introduced for many of the airline services, and in 1944 there were 57 of them based on Whitchurch. Bristol Aeroplane Company had an engine maintenance activity in hangars on the airfield.

After the war ended the airport was managed by the new Ministry of Civil Aviation. KLM left at the end 1944 but BOAC continued training courses until 1948. The Bristol and Wessex Aeroplane Club resumed activities and again provided an Airport Manager. When BOAC set up an aircraft maintenace operation at Filton in 1949, a branch of its in-house Airways Flying Club was formed at Whitchurch. But passenger flights were few until Cambrian Airways, partly owned by BEA, began services to British and French towns from 1953, using Doves, Herons and DC3s.