Although it transpired that their involvement with the site was relatively fleeting the Shorts legacy lives on today with the original workers dwellings still standing very much unchanged in appearance since the days they were built. It is rather fitting that in later years several of the streets in the village were named after some of their most famous aircraft and in 2015 three streets on the new development built on the old site were named after the three brothers.

A tenancy agreement for Shorts employees dated March 1920 tell us rents were inclusive of rates and water rates with electric lighting billed separately. Tenants were not allowed to keep any animals without permission from the estate clerk and washing could only be dried at the back of each property away from public view before 6pm and until 2pm on Saturdays and not at all on Sundays. The estate clerk was also responsible for arranging refuse to be collected ‘periodically’.

Very little is known of the early years of Shortstown as anything associated with the war effort was heavily censored. (Indeed on some maps dated as late as 1960 Shortstown and the two sheds do not feature at all.) We at least know when the first houses were built as 1917 is displayed on all of the houses in The Highway and the date of 1917 in Roman numerals can be clearly seen at the top of the Shorts Admin Block.

In 1920 the works site was taken over from Shorts and nationalised and renamed The Royal Airship Works. Now in the hands of the Admiralty work continued on the unfinished R38 airship which was sold to the US - however the ship crashed in the river Humber near Hull in 1921 with the loss of 44 lives and airship development was immediately stopped. Although airship construction had been suspended in 1921 men were still employed on the site in the Gas Plant and research still continued on balloons and kite balloons. There was also a skeleton staff to maintain the site. In his book “Airships Cardington” Geoffrey Chamberlain records that in April 1925 the R33 emerged from the shed following an extensive refit which implies work had been done on the ship prior to this date and it is more than likely that people were brought to Shortstown to begin this work in the preceding year.

For Shortstown the years from 1924 - 1930 were particularly eventful. The decision of the government to begin building airships again brought very gifted individuals to the area and if we look at the electoral registers we can see that by spring 1925 all the houses on the estate were occupied. The range of skills and occupations of the people there is very impressive - we see senior admin staff, site personnel, seasoned airship crewman: - engineers, coxswains, riggers, and members of the airship design team all living alongside each other

Below is a list of names and occupations where known of some of the residents in Shortstown between (but not inclusive in some cases) 1925 and 1930.