The airfield was located in a triangle of flat fields midway between Harlaxton Manor (now the University of Evansville's British campus) and the nearby village of Stroxton.

During the Second World War Harlaxton Manor was requisitioned by the Royal Air Force as the station's officers' mess and later to temporarily house the headquarters of the 1st Airborne Division.

The airfield opened in November 1916 as a Royal Flying Corps training aerodrome with three grassed runways laid out in an equilateral triangle, unusually oriented to the north.

[5] As the war came to a close the station continued in a satellite and occasional relief landing ground role but now for the flying training facility at RAF Cranwell.

[6] A Royal Observer Corps aircraft spotting post was located on the north-east perimeter of the airfield during the Second World War and would have been responsible for initiating air raid warnings to the Grantham area during hostilities.

On 29 January 1945 a United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) Douglas C-47 Skytrain transport aircraft attempted an emergency landing at Harlaxton and suffered major airframe damage during the incident.