Biggin Hill is best known for its role during the Battle of Britain in the Second World War, when it served as one of the principal fighter bases protecting London and South East England from attack by German Luftwaffe bombers.

Then on 13 February 1917 the RFC transferred there (from their long-time HQ at RAF Joyce Green, at Long Reach near Dartford), and established it as part of the London Air Defence Area, using the adjacent Cudham Lodge estate, which contained a huge undivided field ideal for aircraft.

[8] Between the wars, the airfield was used by a number of experimental units, working on instrument design, ground-based anti-aircraft defences, and night flying.

Between August 1940 and January 1941, the airfield was attacked twelve times, the worst of which wrecked workshops, stores, barracks, WAAF quarters and a hangar, killing 39 people on the ground.

[13] After the war, Biggin Hill was briefly used by RAF Transport Command, and then became a base for both regular and reserve fighter squadrons, flying Spitfires, Meteors and Hunters.

Croydon closed completely in 1959, at which time Biggin Hill became a mainly civilian airport with only occasional military flying taking place.

To comply with the direction would have required the transfer of all the assets and liabilities to the company with a consequential loss of council control over airport activities.

In the circumstances, the council decided that the granting of a 125-year lease would enable more control to be retained than an outright disposal of the freehold or by a transfer to a local authority company with an uncertain future.

[42] The airport has one runway (03/21, so close to northeast by north/southwest by west) 1,820 metres in length, making it usable by aircraft up to Boeing 737/Airbus A320 size, and it has an Instrument Landing System.

[46] The current RAF Biggin Hill is a small enclave on the western boundary of the airport to the south of the passenger terminal, and contains the headquarters of 2427 Squadron of the Air Training Corps.

It is surrounded by a garden of remembrance and has gate guardians in the form of full-sized replicas of a Hurricane and a Spitfire, representing the aircraft that flew from the former airfield during the Battle of Britain.

The buildings, which are Grade II listed, are in a redbrick neo-Georgian style typical of military airfields of the interwar period.

[6] The 'South Camp', situated to the south of runway 11/29, was transferred to civil usage in the 1950s and now consists of a utilitarian collection of hangars and sheds, together with a modern office park.

Excavations of the site uncovered underground war-time fuel tanks and associated pump rooms; these were re-covered during the same building works.

One site operates within its Aerodrome Traffic Zone (2.5 NM (4.6 km; 2.9 mi) radius)[51] For 60 years (to 2016) an Air Scout centre has been located on the grounds of the airport.

IntotheBlue experience days, a UK company within the airfield allows members of the public to fly alongside a Mk9 Spitfire in a 1950s Harvard.

The airport features briefly in the 2006 film The Da Vinci Code, as a landing site for the main characters travelling to London.