Buildings 43, 46, 48 and 50 (Type Q Barracks)

Details

STANTON ST QUINTIN

1384/0/10016 HULLAVINGTON BARRACKS 01-DEC-05 Buildings 43, 46, 48 and 50 (Type Q Ba rracks)

GV II Four airmen's barracks blocks, type Q. 1935 - 6. A Bulloch, architectural advisor to the Air Ministry's Directorate of Works and Buildings. Bath stone ashlar on brick walls, concrete floors, steel roof trusses with profiled tiles.

PLAN: Barracks blocks in parallel pairs to each side of the main parade ground. All 2-storey symmetrical buildings, with central entrance and staircase hall flanked by NCO's bedrooms and airmen's dormitories; behind the entrance hall a projecting service wing with ablutions and toilets. Buildings 43 and 48 designed for 8 NCOs and 156 airmen; buildings 46 and 50 for 8 NCOs and 128 airmen. Modified for current use as administrative buildings.

EXTERIOR: Description is based on Building 46, with variations noted as appropriate. All have hipped roofs, with parapets to the front range, but the lower roof to the service wing taken to an eaves, and two original hopper-heads and downpipes remain to front and rear. Windows mainly glazing-bar wood casements to flush boxes. Two storeys, 11 bays, central pair of fielded panel doors to radial fanlight under flush voussoir arch with keystone and responds, above which is an elongated bulls-eye light also with keystone. To each side are four 12-pane and one 8-pane sashes to each floor, and the short returned ends have a narrow 8-pane each side of an escape door, the upper door to a spiral concrete stair. The rear has three 12-pane and an 8-pane each side of the central wing, which has a lower ridge-line, abutting the parapet of the front range. The wings have seven small 6-pane casements at each level, but on one side the lower floor has a series of small roof vents to all slopes near the lower edge in the front range, and all have 2 small inset roof lights near the ridge.

Buildings 43 and 48 are in exactly the same general format, but have 13 bays to the front range, with 5 larger and 1 smaller window each side of centre, but in these two blocks all windows have been replaced in the original openings with plastic coated units; main doors remain unchanged.

INTERIORS: Not inspected, but some sub-division has been made.

HISTORY: Four good examples of the type of airmen's barracks for the first phase of the 1930s Expansion Period of the RAF; they form a significant group around the parade ground, with the Station HQ (qv) to one end, and the main Institute to the other.

This is a distinctive design of 1935 by the Air Ministry architect, A Bulloch. Hullavington, which opened on June 6th 1937 as a Flying Training Station, is in every respect the key station most strongly representative of the improved architectural quality characteristic of the air bases developed under the post-1934 expansion of the RAF. Although these buildings have unfortunately lost all their original sashes, the original forms and composition remain, and by virtue of its location, architectural quality, and purpose, this group is certainly of special interest within the station complex. They form a significant group around the parade ground, which is dissected by the main axis around which the base has been planned. Detailing is restrained throughout, but massing, spacing and proportions are carefully considered, in the neo-Georgian style favoured at this period, and influenced by the impact of the Royal Fine Arts Commission, especially through the architect, Sir Edwin Lutyens.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

496009

Legacy System:

LBS

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