Cardington is a village and civil parish in the Borough of Bedford in Bedfordshire, England. Part of the ancient hundred of Wixamtree, the settlement is best known in connection with the Cardington airship works founded by Short Brothers during World War I, which later became an RAF training station. However most of the former RAF station is actually in the parish of Eastcotts, as is the settlement of Shortstown, which was originally built by Short Brothers for its workers. The village of Cardington is located to the north east of Shortstown and the RAF station, and houses most of the population of the parish, which was 270 in 2005, making it one of the least populated parishes in Bedfordshire. Sites of interest The Church of St Mary the Virgin has pieces dating from the 12th century, although the church itself was mostly rebuilt between 1898 and 1902. It is a Grade II listed building. Airships, barrage balloons and RAF Cardington Cardington became one of the major British sites involved in the development of airships when Short Brothers bought land there to build airships for the Admiralty. They constructed a airship hangar (the No. 1 Shed) in 1915 to enable them to build two rigid airships, the R-31 and the R-32. Some 800 people worked there in 1917, most of them travelled daily from Bedford. Shorts also built a housing estate, opposite the site, which they named Shortstown. The airships site was nationalised in April 1919, becoming known as the Royal Airship Works. In preparation for the R101 project the No 1 shed was extended between October 1924 and March 1926; its roof was raised by 35 feet and its length increased to 812 feet. The No. 2 shed (Southern shed) was originally located at RNAS Pulham, Norfolk. It was dismantled there and re-erected at Cardington in 1928. After the crash of the R101, in October 1930, all work stopped in Britain on airships. Cardington then became a storage station. In 1936/1937 Cardington started building barrage balloons; and it became the No. 1 RAF Balloon Training Unit. For both airships and barrage balloons, Cardington manufactured its own hydrogen, in the Gas Factory, using the steam reforming process. In 1948 the Gas Factory became 279 MU (Maintenance Unit), RAF Cardington; and then, in 1955, 217 MU. 217 MU, RAF Cardington, produced all the gases used by the Royal Air Force until its