Control Tower, to Former RAF Ludham, 330 Metres Sse of Starkings Farm, and Former Watch Office 50 Metres to S

Reasons for Designation

An exceptionally well-preserved example of a Second World War control tower.

Details

LUDHAM

1237/0/10017 Control Tower, to former RAF Ludham, 3 01-DEC-05 30 metres SSE of Starkings Farm, and f ormer watch office 50 metres to S

GV II Control Tower and small Watch Office to S. 1941 and 1943. Control tower built to designs of the Air Ministry's Directorate of Works and Buildings, as Office for All Commands design, to Drawing No. 343/43. Rendered brick with asphalt roof.
PLAN: ground floor has watch office to front with duty pilot's rest room, meteorological office, switch room and lavatories to rear; first floor has control room to front, with controller's rest room and signals office to rear, opening onto passage with access to stairs.
EXTERIOR: multi-paned steel casements to front and to flank walls of watch office and control room, providing clear views of the flying field. Access from steel stairs on return elevation to concrete balcony with tubular steel railings and with iron columns providing support. Smaller steel casements to rear part of side and rear elevations. Doors to left-hand and rear elevations.
INTERIOR: concrete stairs; painted brick walls; some panelled doors.

Former watch office 50 m to S is a 1940 design (see below) comprising a T-plan reinforced concrete block.

HISTORY: Ludham was opened in 1941 as a forward operating base for Fighter Command, serving as a satellite airfield of Coltishall in 12 Group. It mainly worked with Coastal Command in the patrolling of convoys and e-boat attacks. Fighter and bomber satellites constructed during 1940/41 were built to serve existing parent stations and as such had very basic air traffic control facilities. Fighter satellite stations such as Culmhead, Fairlop and Ludham had the most basic structure (14483/40 & 17658/40 etc) consisting of a small temporary brick, concrete roofed single-storey building containing just one room - the watch office (37 examples). The example at Ludham stands approx. 50 metres south of the control tower.

The Control Tower represents a later version of the standard Air Ministry design (Watch Office for All Commands), of which 82 now survive. It is one of a very small number which have survived in this degree of preservation - other examples being Alconbury (with operations room attached), Duxford, Dunkeswell, Rougham, Elvington, Little Walden (or Matching Green) and East Kirkby.

In the second half of the 1930s, increasing attention was being given to the dispersal and shelter of aircraft from attack, ensuring serviceable landing and take-off areas, and the control of movement: the result was the development of the control tower and the planning from 1938 of the first airfields with runways and perimeter tracks. The control tower, which first appeared as a recognisable design in 1934, became the most distinctive and instantly recognisable building associated with military airfields, particularly in the Second World War when they served as foci for base personnel as they awaited the return of aircraft from operations. This is one of a very small number of control towers on Second World War airfields which are either exceptionally well-preserved or have distinguished operational histories.

Paul Francis, British Military Airfield Architecture (Sparkford, 1996); Michael Bowyer, Military Airfields of East Anglia, Action Stations 1 (Cambridge, 1979), pp. 146-7.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

501766

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Bowyer, M J F, Action stations 1: Wartime military airfields of East Anglia 1939 to 1945, (1979), 146-7
Francis, P, British Military Airfield Architecture From Airships To The Jet Age, (1996)

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