Watch Office, former RAF Great Orton

Summary

Watch Office (control tower), Air Ministry Works Directorate (AMWD) drawing number 3156/41, built 1943.

Reasons for Designation

The Watch Office at former RAF Great Orton, opened June 1943, conforming to Air Ministry Works Directorate drawing number 3156/41, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:
* the watch office is a unique survival, the only remaining example of five that were built to this particular design;

* it demonstrates an important stage in the growth in size and sophistication of watch office buildings during the Second World War, allowing the control aircraft both in the air and on the ground by radiotelephony, and the introduction of electronically controlled runway lighting;

* the building retains its original plan and legibility.

Historic interest:
* it played a vital role in the training of ground-attack Hawker Typhoon pilots in the build-up to D-Day, who then went on to provide support to the Allied advance in Europe;

* the watch office represents an eloquent witness to the impact of world events on our national and international story during the Second World War.

History

During the late 1930s, military air traffic control was often limited to a Duty Pilot who oversaw the registering-in and out of aircraft, equipped only with a Very flare pistol and visual ground-to-air signal squares, to give information and warnings to an airborne pilot. However, as war clouds gathered, several small watch office designs were drawn up to cope with controlling the safety of the ever-increasing number of aircraft in the air using radio telephony. The most important building on any airfield is the watch office, later known by the American term 'control tower' and the example at Great Orton was built to the Air Ministry Works Directorate drawing number 3156/41; this drawing gave the specifications for a number of designs of small structures to be built as ‘Watch Office for Fighter Satellite Stations’. The drawing illustrated a number of designs based on a basic rectangular two-storey structure, one with a Night Flying Equipment (NFE) Store, Signals Office, and Switch Room on the ground-floor and an observation / control room on the first-floor, occupying the space over the signals office. The other design was for a very similar structure but lacking the integral NFE store and this was the design used at Great Orton. Only five such watch offices were ever built to this design: Fordoun, Scotland; Great Orton; Ludham, Norfolk; Lulsgate (Bristol Airport), and Stretton, Cheshire. Great Orton is now unique, being the only extant example, the remainder having been demolished and or replaced. This design of watch office marked an important stage in the ever more complex development of air traffic control, controlling numbers of aircraft in a circuit at any one time by speech using radiotelephony, being able to control ground movements, and lighting the runway flarepath remotely from a desk.

RAF Great Orton (locally known as Watchtree) was constructed during 1943, following the demolition of Watchtree House and farm; it was opened in June but was not fully completed until November 1943. Originally it was intended to be a satellite for a new airfield to be built at Crosby; however, that station was not constructed, and Great Orton became a satellite to RAF Silloth, for the use of 6 Operational Training Unit (OTU), relieving the pressure on that busy station. The airfield operated as an Operational Training Unit using Vickers Wellington bombers, and later Hawker Hurricane and Hawker Typhoon aircraft for training ground-attack fighter pilots, who had completed their fighter training or were being converted to the new role, that is attacking German supply lines and transport systems in France, ahead of D-Day. The airfield later became a Tactical Exercise Unit, converting pilots onto Hawker Typhoon aircraft in the ground-attack interdiction role, continuing to attack transport targets, but increasingly used as precision low-level attack on troop concentrations, vehicles, convoys, artillery and tanks. It was also used during 1944 by Air Sea Rescue units flying Vickers Warwick twin-engine aircraft over the Irish Sea.

Post war it was used to store large stocks of bombs, prior to their disposal in the Irish Sea, eventually closing in 1952. Although not in use as an airfield, it was retained by the Ministry of Defence until 1964, when it was finally sold and returned to agricultural use. Over the time since its closure, most of the airfield buildings, which were predominantly of ‘temporary utility’ construction and 'built for the duration', were abandoned and allowed to decay, or were given 'low-grade' agricultural use, leaving only the watch office, a stand-by set house, a water tower base and one Nissen hut on the main airfield site. The airfield footprint does remain apparent, with three concrete runways set within an enclosing perimeter track; however, all three runways have been reduced in width, with some substantial sections of concrete having been removed. There are several ‘spectacle’ aircraft hard standings on the eastern, north western and southern perimeter tracks, but all have been denuded to a greater or lesser extent. During the late 1990s, the north-south runway was developed as a wind farm and in the early C21 Watchtree Nature Reserve was established on the former airfield, once more changing the character and purpose of the site.

Details

Watch Office (control tower), Air Ministry Works Directorate (AMWD) drawing number 3156/41, built 1943.

MATERIALS: fair-faced brick, with galvanized-steel Crittal windows and a reinforced concrete roof surfaced in asphalt.

PLAN: two-story rectangular plan, with an attached square-plan single-storey switch room against the north-east elevation, and an entrance porch attached to the north-west elevation.

EXTERIOR: the watch office is aligned roughly south-west to north-east, with the single-bay, two-storey main elevation facing south-west. The main elevation has a wide observation window to both the ground and first floors, with concrete sills and reinforced concrete beams forming the lintels. Each window is divided by two brick pillars into three; the outer pair of windows have two-panel casements and the central window had three-panel casements. The side elevations are wider than the main and rear elevations.

The south-east elevation: has similar windows; two to the ground-floor, along with a high-set steel-framed door opening that gave external access to the former pyrotechnic cupboard, and a narrow closet window, while the first-floor has two casements.

The north-east elevation (rear): has three windows lighting the internal staircase and the upper window permits a view from the control room over the airfield to the north-east. A square-plan, single-storey switch room is attached to the northern corner, accessed by an external doorway. It has a flat concrete roof with ventilation panels set under the eaves.
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The north-west elevation: has a single three-panel casement at its right end, lighting the signals/watch office; it is flanked to the left by a projecting narrow single-storey flat roofed porch, approached by concrete steps, and a narrow window to its left lights the base of the stairs. The first floor has a narrow single-panel window lighting the staircase and two three-panel casements lighting the control room.

The reinforced concrete roof is protected from the weather by a layer of asphalt; it has a series of corroded stanchion bases for tubular handrails around its edges, and has an open rectangular hatch at the eastern corner with raised sides and a pair of low carrier walls, which once supported a sliding hatch.

INTERIOR: on entering the ground-floor porch, a doorway straight ahead enters the square-plan signals/watch office, which has a concrete floor and a concrete ceiling supported by a transverse reinforced concrete beam. The remains of the pyrotechnic cupboard, comprising a concrete shelf supported by brick carrier walls, is situated in the east corner of the room. A door in the rear wall leads into to a closet beneath the stairs. Returning to the entrance corridor, a door gives access to the base of the staircase that rises to a first-floor landing, set between the rear wall of the signals/watch office and the outer wall.

First floor: a doorway to the right of the landing leads into the control room; it is flanked by a wide internal window, beneath a concrete beam in the rear wall of the control room. This internal window allowed a view to the north-east, through the external windows in the outer wall. The control room has a concrete floor and ceiling, also with a transverse reinforced concrete beam identical to that below. A hatch in the ceiling above the landing permits access to the roof. Both the control room and the watch office have witness marks in the floors and cable openings and conduit brackets on the walls.

Sources

Books and journals
Smith, D J, Action Stations 3. Military Airfields of Wales and the North-West, (1981), 77-78
Francis, P, Control Towers: The Development of the Control Tower on RAF Stations in the United Kingdom, (1993), 45-50

Websites
Control Towers - Great Orton, accessed 20 July 2022 from https://www.controltowers.co.uk/G/Great_Orton.htm
Great Orton - Airfields of Great Britain Conservation Trust UK, accessed 20 July 2022 from https://www.abct.org.uk/airfields/airfield-finder/great-orton/

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