Robin Goch: The incredible story of Charles Horace Watkins and his Whitchurch plane

Yet another story of a local man with an incredible story!

Has anyone heard of Charles Horace Watkins? I hadn’t until recently; when Derek from Pontypridd told me a little about him and his connection with Whitchurch.

CHW was born on Mynachdy Farm, just half-a-mile south of the parish boundary in 1887, and was an inventor from an early age. He used one of the barns on the family farm to carry out his experiments and to make all sorts of fantastic equipment. As a very young lad, he built his own motorbike from scratch, including the engine, and used it to take part in scrambling/timed-races up Rhiwbina Hill.

In the early 1900s (when he was still in his teens), he started experimenting with the idea of powered flight. From the basic principles of a lighter-than-air-machine, CHW started to design and assemble an aeroplane. Remember this was before anyone had conquered powered flight.

He’d learned about the Wright Brothers, and how by 1903, they had managed to achieve a maiden flight in America. But their aeroplane was an incredible spider’s web with skis underneath and had only managed a few extended ‘hops’.

CHW built a monoplane with an open wooden structure with piano wire as straining wires. The engine was home-made (based on his motorbike engine) and had a wooden propellor at the front. The canvas-covered bodywork was painted bright red so he called it Robin Goch (Robin Redbreast).

If this sounds far-fetched, it gets even weirder. The seat of the plane was a chair from the farm kitchen, and he proposed to navigate using an egg-timer! He even arranged two lengths of weighted string to dangle from underneath to warn himself of how close to land he was coming, to achieve a safe landing. Can you believe this?

By 1908, he had completed his monoplane and (according to Derek), he brought it to Whitchurch Common. Of course, this was before lorries or cars so he probably used one of the horses from the farm to tow it along the narrow roads.

He took off and flew around Whitchurch and then landed safely. There is no verification of this, although there are newspaper reports of the time of him flying around Whitchurch, as far as Caerphilly Mountain and then back again. The sketch above shows CHW in Robin Goch above the village.

If this is all true, then Charles Horace Watkins would be the first aviator in Wales! Apparently, he even went on to be the first aviator ever to land at night.

If only we could prove this, it would make an incredible local story. But amazingly, it is true! There is an old photograph showing a young CHW standing outside the barn at Mynachdy with Robin Goch. After a few years of flying, the aeroplane suffered a cracked engine block and he wasn’t able to repair it. So, the Robin Goch was ‘grounded’, back at the barn.

And then WW1 was declared. CHW joined the army as an engineer (this was before the Royal Flying Corps and RAF). He survived both WW1 and WW2, and it was only in 1959 that he started to build a replica of Robin Goch (some reports say the aeroplane was restored not rebuilt). RAF specialists were sufficiently intrigued and asked if Robin Goch could be an exhibit at their new museum at St Athan. He agreed, and it was on display there for many years.

And then what? Well, CHW died in 1976, somewhat in obscurity, but the replica Robin Goch was transferred from St Athan to the new Swansea Maritime Museum when it opened in the early 2000s. It is now suspended from wires ‘soaring’ high above the other displays in the atrium, and is the most admired of all of their exhibits. Countless small children vote for the Robin Goch as the ‘best’ item in the museum.

So, why don’t we know more about this special man, born just south of the village and flying his home-made monoplane from the common? I can’t believe that boys and girls in our local schools don’t know more about this incredible man. Perhaps this story will put things right.

The story of CHW’s later life is just as unbelievable. But this must wait for another time!

PS. If you’re wondering how Charles used an egg-timer to navigate, it’s quite simple. Once flying, he’d set the egg-timer on the dashboard and fly straight until the sand ran out. He’d then turn the plane through ninety degrees and reset the egg-timer. Two more goes and he’d be back where he started from!