Buildings 73 and 74

Details

DUXFORD

1767/0/10034 SOUTH CAMP, IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM (FORME 01-DEC-05 R RAF DUXFORD) Buildings 73 and 74

GV II Military transport garages and workshops. 1917, by the War Office's Directorate of Fortifications and Works. Drawing No 289/17. Painted brickwork walls and piers, low-pitched slate roofs on steel trusses.

PLAN: A pair of parallel 12-bay sheds with broad central concrete manoeuvring space. A series of continuous garages with full width and height doors divided by piers, but the first two bays from the W end in 74, and first from the E in 73 with enclosed fronts, providing office or stores/workshop spaces. At each end the sheds are gabled, and not linked by walls.

EXTERIOR: The two ranges are virtually identical in their detailing, with facing the yard, full width overhead roller-shutters to each vehicle bay, with square dividing piers to a plain eaves. The outer and end walls are plain, except the E gable to Building 73, which has three steel 12-pane casements. Building 73 has the first bay filled, with a brick partition wall containing a door and window; 74 bays 11 and 12 filled, with horizontal board to timber framing, and with an early plank door with overlight, and three 2-light small-pane casements. There is patent-glazing ridge-lighting to bays 10 - 12 in 73, and bays, 6, 8, and 9 in 74,

INTERIOR: Not inspected.

HISTORY: Duxford is the finest and best-preserved example of a fighter base representative of the period up to 1945 in Britain, with a uniquely complete group of First World War technical buildings in addition to technical and domestic buildings typical of both inter-war Expansion Periods of the RAF. It also has important associations with the Battle of Britain and the American fighter support for the Eighth Air Force. See descriptions of the aircraft hangars for further historical details.

These garage bays are arranged in a form which became standardised on military airfields; here the buildings remain from the original layout of the airfield, as part of the technical buildings including hangars grouped south of the public through-road (now A 505). In addition to the consequent historical interest, these two ranges also retain the original design features. These buildings are historically important, since they remain from the original layout and designs of 1917; they have survived with minimum external change, and are representative of the basic designs in use during the early years of military aviation. They are closely associated with the main hangar group immediately to the south. The Training Depot Station at Duxford is the most complete WWI airfield group, with hangars and ancillary buildings, in Britain. The training of pilots for service overseas formed a critical aspect of Britain's air service in the First World War period, and the Training Depot Stations - initiated in 1917, and of which 63 were built by November 1918 - comprised the largest airfield construction programme of the First World War period. Each TDS comprised three flying units, each having a coupled general service shed, and one repair section hangar (the only surviving examples of the latter is at Old Sarum, Wiltshire) for the provision of serviceable engines and aircraft. Other specialist buildings, such as carpenters' shops, dope and engine repair shops, and technical and plane stores, characterised these sites.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

500346

Legacy System:

LBS

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