Ancestor Of The Gatwick Gusher

Monday 22nd June 1936

Oil exploration came to the peaceful south of England in the form of an exploratory well being drilled near Worthing by the D'Arcy Exploration Company, a subsidiary of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, today known as BP. It used conventional technology. There was no sign of protest from local people.

It proved a fruitless venture but many years later commercially viable deposits were found at Horndean. This field is today operated by UK Oil and Gas, a quoted company which makes much of the potential for massive extraction of shale gas in the area of Gatwick airport.