Before the airport was built, it was a field for bullocks. Nigel Love, a former World War I pilot, wanted to start building aircraft. He needed to set up a factory and an aerodrome close to the city. He found some land owned by the Kensington Race Club. It had been used by a local abattoir, which was closing down, to graze sheep and cattle. The surface was perfectly flat and was covered with a pasture of buffalo grass. This grass which had been grazed so evenly by the sheep and cattle running on it that it was easy to make it suitable to land aircraft. In addition, it was clear for aircraft on all four sides. On the sides of the field were a racecourse, gardens, a river and Botany Bay.