Visitors to Helston Museum this month can step back in time to a world when airships on the Lizard Peninsula were at the frontline of wartime operations.

The exhibition titled ‘The War at Sea and in the Air’ shows what life was like on a Royal Naval air station during World War One.

Filled with photographs, aviation artefacts and audio recordings, the exhibition focuses on RNAS Mullion at Bonython near Cury, which was a frontline airship station from 1916 through to the end of the war, and was the busiest naval station in Britain at that time.

Originally called ‘Lizard Airship Station’ it became a large wartime industrial complex, with accommodation blocks, gas storage tanks, processing plants, workshops and two vast airship ‘sheds’ that towered over the Cornish countryside.

Its position made it ideally positioned in the battle against the German threat and RNAS Mullion became central to anti-submarine operations off the South Western approaches throughout the war. Airships proved a formidable deterrent against U-boats while performing reconnaissance, patrolling, mine-hunting and convoy escort duties.

It closed in the summer of 1919 and the airships were decommissioned, with the land – these days marked by six large wind turbines – returned to its owners.

Martine Knight, secretary of the Helston World War Heritage Project, which put together the exhibition, said: “Interestingly enough, a lot of people didn’t know there was a naval airship station there during the First World War.

“On the ground we were fortunate the land owner of the Bonython estate allowed us to take a group of air cadets onto the site to look around. You can still see the concrete hard standings for the two massive sheds, as they were known then, and some mooring out blocks used to hold back the doors.”

Along with pictures from RNAS Culdrose and the Fleet Air Arm Museum at Yeovilton, many of which have never been put on display before, there are many interesting stories uncovered during research for the exhibition.

Martine added: “We have been fortunate with funding and contributions from many sources in particular from the Shuttleworth collection, which has lent us some artefacts and uniforms for the duration of the exhibition.”

The exhibition is on show until November 30, with the award-winning museum open 10am until 4pm, Mondays to Saturdays.