Centurion House, Buildings 21 And 21A (Dining Room And Institute)

1783/0/10002

MANBY, MANBY BUSINESS PARK, Centurion House, Buildings 21 and 21a (Dining Room and Institute)

GV II

Airmen's dining room and institute. 1936-7. A Bulloch, architectural advisor to the Air Ministry's Directorate or Works and Buildings (drawing no. 2013/36). Cavity brick construction, interlocking tile roof covering to parapetted hipped roofs, brick stacks.

PLAN: Two parallel blocks, to N and S of central service yard and buildings.

EXTERIOR: 2 storeys. All windows are wood sashes, set to flush boxes with brick voussoir heads and concrete sills. S block has 11-window S elevation with 20-pane first-floor, 24-pane ground-floor sashes and projecting central bay; latter has hipped parapetted roof and 18-pane sash above panelled double doors with radial fanlight set in semi-circular header arch set on imposts; one-window returns, to right with similar doorway; channelled rustication to door surrounds. Similar fenestration to rear wings. N block has 15-window N elevation with similar fenestration and central parapetted entrance porch; outer bays have hipped bays brought to eaves below central parapet, and 15-pane sash above semi-circular arched doorway with radial fanlight.

INTERIOR: some internal joinery including panelled doors; staircases with steel balustrades.

HISTORY: This is a distinctive design of 1935 by the Air Ministry architect, A Bulloch. 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 though the architect, Sir Edwin Lutyens. Manby ranks with Hullavington in Wiltshire - another Scheme A station - as the most complete and architecturally unified of the post-1934 stations of the so-called Expansion Period of the RAF. For further details see description for Tedder Hall (qv).