Southern General Service Hangar (Building 18), Hooton Park Aerodrome

Southern General Service Hangar (Building 18), Hooton Park Aerodrome

A general service hangar built in 1917 for the Royal Flying Corps, with later alterations. The building is constructed of red brick with a bitumen-felted roof. It is a single-storey, twin-range hangar measuring 16 bays in length, with flanking workshops on either side.

The structure is notable for its surviving south-west corner pylon, which features six brick piers linked at the top by segmental arches. The south end has doors arranged in three tiers of horizontally-sliding pairs, with a modern opening inserted in the centre of the right-hand bay. The gables are segmentally-headed with vertical studding and blocked central louvres. Continuous roof lanterns run along each range.

The west side displays raking buttresses to each bay, with contemporary lean-to offices occupying the central section, their window openings now bricked in. The east side has a modern addition of no special architectural interest, while the north end has a modern brick facade.

Internally, each bay is divided by a wooden-latticed 'Belfast' roof truss. A central arcade of twin brick piers linked by segmental arches runs through the building. The 'Belfast' roof trusses were manufactured by D Anderson and Co. of Belfast. The hangars were built by Holland, Hannan and Cubitt Ltd to a type design by the Royal Engineers, with 80-foot spans and 25-foot clear heights.

Hooton Park itself occupies the site of a demolished house whose park was partly laid out as a racecourse in the late 19th century. The site was requisitioned by the army in 1914. In late 1916, construction began on hangars intended for a new Aircraft Acceptance Park to receive and manufacture American-built aircraft destined for Liverpool's docks. However, the need to train fighter pilots for the Western Front altered these plans, and the hangars were completed in 1917 as part of a new Training Depot Station, formally established in September 1917 to train Canadian and American pilots.

After closure in 1919, the station's training functions relocated to RAF Shotwick (Sealand), across the Dee in Clwyd. The site was selected in 1927 as one of a small number of Air Ministry-subsidised flying clubs, following a meeting at Liverpool Town Hall supported by Sir Sefton Brancker, Director of Civil Aviation. With the formation of the Comper Aircraft Company on the site in 1930, Hooton Park served as Liverpool's municipal airport from 1930 until its replacement by Speke in 1933. This period relates to an important formative phase in British civil aviation, immediately following official government encouragement of the industry.

No. 610 'County of Chester' Squadron was formed at Hooton in February 1936 and subsequently played a key role in the Battle of France and the Battle of Britain. From early 1940, No. 7 Aircraft Assembly Unit assembled approximately 9,000 aircraft brought into Merseyside's ports from North America. The 'Civilian Repair Organisation', headed by Martin Hearn, made significant contributions to the war effort through inspection and overhaul of aircraft, particularly the Mosquito.

During the Second World War, Hooton Park played a vital support role in keeping shipping lanes into Liverpool open through flying 'Scarecrow Patrols' as part of Coastal Command's Coastal Patrol Flights. No. 206 Squadron flew Avro Reconnaissance bombers from the station, later replaced by American Hudsons, while No. 502 Squadron operated Whitley bombers equipped with radar for anti-submarine warfare. No. 11 Radio School occupied the hangars from 1942 to 1944, serving as the only school established specifically to train Coastal Command's airborne radar operators for submarine detection.

Hooton Park's location close to the port of Liverpool connects it to an internationally significant group of sites associated with the development of communications, from coastal to trans-Atlantic shipping, railways, and finally aviation. Its role in the Battle of the Atlantic and its association with Coastal Command operations represent a vital part of British military aviation history during the Second World War.

Of the 66 stations of this type operational in November 1918, Hooton Park shares with Duxford in Cambridgeshire the distinction of retaining its original complement of three paired hangars. This represents a rare survival of significance within the context of early powered flight in Britain and Europe. Two runways were laid in 1941. The three paired hangars at Hooton and the related group at RAF North Shotwick (Sealand) across the Dee in Clwyd were built for the same Wing and operated together as a single airfield complex—a unique survival of this operational arrangement. The repair hangar was demolished circa 1920.