Details
785/0/10083 VINCENT SQUARE
01-DEC-05 A233 (west side)
1-4
GV II
Terrace of four houses, part of group 26. 1929, by the Air Ministry's Directorate of Works and Buildings. Painted brickwork, cavity walls, slate roofs.
PLAN: A short straight terrace of four dwellings, each entered to the right, with living, dining and kitchen ground floor, and three bedrooms; originally four open fireplaces, two to each floor, on party wall to left. Terrace lies to W side of the Square, at the S end.
EXTERIOR: Windows generally plain wooden sash, in half-brick reveals and to concrete sub-sills. At first floor three windows, separated by narrow brick piers, and the outer lights narrower than the centre; below these a canted flat-roofed bay, with brick mullions, large central and smaller side-lights. To the right, on two steps, a flush panelled door with square glazed top panel, under a flat concrete hood with roll-mould edge, and on concrete brackets. To the left of each house a large ridge stack, with deep stepped capping, but that to No 1 as a flush stack to the hipped end, and this stack slightly lower than the remainder.
Ends are plain, and the rear has a triple sash with brick mullions to the first floor, above a large replacement casement, a door, left and a small side light. Small stone with carved date 1929 at the centre party wall. Simple open eaves all round.
INTERIOR: Not inspected; the houses restored by a Housing Association as part of the renovation of the whole Square.
HISTORY: This forms part of the best preserved group of married quarters, typically designed on Garden City principles, that predate the post-1934 Expansion Period of the RAF and relate to a nationally important historic aviation site. They are dated 1929, six of the houses having been demolished following the 1940 raids but still presenting a group of 26 planned as an elongated square around a central grassed area. Land for the new married quarters had been purchased in 1923-5.
Biggin Hill acquired a reputation as the most famous fighter station in the world, primarily through its associations with the Battle of Britain, the first time in history that a nation had retained its freedom and independence through air power. It was developed as a key fighter station in the inter-war period, playing a critical role in the development of the air defence system - based on radar - that played a critical role in the Second World War. Of all the sites which became involved in The Battle of Britain, none have greater resonance in the popular imagination than those of the sector airfields within these Groups which bore the brunt of the Luftwaffe onslaught and, in Churchill's words, 'on whose organisation and combination the whole fighting power of our Air Force at this moment depended'. It was 11 Group, commanded by Air Vice Marshall Keith Park from his underground headquarters at RAF Uxbridge, which occupied the front line in this battle, with its 'nerve centre' sector stations at Northolt, North Weald, Biggin Hill, Tangmere, Debden and Hornchurch taking some of the most sustained attacks of the battle, especially between 24 August and 6 September when these airfields and later aircraft factories became the Luftwaffe's prime targets.
For further details of the history of the site, see description for Station Headquarters, West Camp.
SUMMARY
This forms part of the best preserved group of married quarters, typically designed on Garden City principles, that predate the post-1934 Expansion Period and relate to a nationally important historic aviation site.
