Building 16 (Iot Headquarters)

BUILDING 16 (IOT HEADQUARTERS)

Mess building, 1933-4, designed by the Air Ministry's Directorate of Works and Buildings. Dark brown brick in Flemish bond with Portland stone dressings and slate roof.

The building comprises a long symmetrical front range facing north along the main axis of Queens Avenue, positioned to face the Cadet College. This front range is in double depth with short projecting wings and a central lobby. At each end, long single storey wings extend back and return with short pavilions, defining a courtyard with a wide access way through the lower storey. All units have hipped roofs to concealed parapet gutters. The 2-storey blocks are double-banked, with staircases at each end of the front block.

The north front is organised in a 1:4:1:4:1 bay arrangement. The end pavilions contain 18-pane windows, while the main body has large 20-pane sashes above 24-pane sashes. Windows throughout are glazing-bar sashes in flush boxes with brick voussoirs and stone sills. The inner returns to the pavilions have 12-pane above two 8-pane windows, with a mid-height 24-pane sash to the centre. A pair of central panelled hardwood doors with radial fanlight is set on one step in a Portland stone Doric doorcase with moulded architrave and bold keystone, topped by a full architrave and blocking course to a shallow balcony reached by French doors in stone architrave with flat cornice on brackets. The end pavilions each have a panelled door beneath a honeycomb light in a broad architrave with quintuple keystones.

The western return has a mid-height 8-pane sash followed by 3 bays with 15-pane above 18-pane windows, the lower centre sash being 24-pane. The eastern return has similar detailing but includes a deep, wide 3-bay flat-roofed porch with central panelled doors and overlight flanked by 18-pane lights. Brick piers carry slender Doric stone columns flanking the door on stone plinths, supporting a full-width stone entablature with 3-course brick blocking and stone parapet. The straight brick wall to this range features close-set 15-pane sashes to the upper floor, interrupted near the western end by a flat-roof extension and marked near the eastern end by a tall eaves stack.

The low wings span 12 bays with mainly 12-pane sashes. The western wing has a panelled door with honeycomb overlight and stone surround in bay 3. Both wings return to 3-bay pavilions with central arched doors featuring margin-pane glazing set in deep, wide recesses beneath broad arches in two rows of voussoirs, flanked by 12-pane sashes. A door and small casement have been added to the western wing. The eastern wing returns with 12-pane sashes and has a double range enclosing a narrow interior court.

Brick walls approximately 2 metres high with broad piers at two wide openings enclose the main courtyard, which contains a separate 2-storey block in 9 bays. This block has seven 12-pane sashes at first floor above four 12-pane windows, with a wide square-headed throughway, a further deep square-headed recess, and a door in stone surround to the ground floor. The block features 3 tall stacks to the inner eaves. All ranges and stacks have simple flush stone copings, the yard walls have brick-on-edge copings, and all have a slightly projecting brick plinth. The interiors are plain.

The building is meticulously detailed and remains practically unaltered externally. It faces a parade ground flanked by barracks, part of the bold replanning of the West Camp completed in 1934. Its design of plain walls with well-proportioned and spaced windows contrasts effectively with the richer detailing of the principal College, which it complements across the north-south axis at a distance of approximately 400 metres.

Building 16 forms an integral part of a site key to the development of Britain's military air power. When the RAF was formed as the world's first independent air force in April 1918, its founding father and first Chief of Air Staff, General Sir Hugh Trenchard, concentrated on developing its strategic role as an offensive bomber force. His primary consideration was establishing a technology-based service through officer training at Cranwell and technician training at Halton in Buckinghamshire. The foundation of a college to train RAF officers on the lines of Sandhurst or Dartmouth was a key element in Trenchard's plan for the permanent organisation of Britain's independent air force.

RAF Cranwell has a long aviation history dating to the earliest years of the service. In early 1918 it was established as a Training Depot Station, having previously been used by the Royal Naval Air Service, from whom the RAF inherited temporary hutting on the West Camp. From 1918 a Radio Training School operated here until 1945. The Cadet College dates from 1919. The whole was renamed RAF College in 1929 and operated as a Service Flying Training School from 1939. From August 1925 until 1935, T E Lawrence served at Cranwell; his experiences are recorded in The Mint, published in 1936.

Although work was largely completed at Halton by 1923, work at Cranwell was delayed through uncertainties about location and costs, with the main Cadet College not begun until 1929 and major domestic buildings not started until after 1933. During the gestation period, major decisions were made about overall planning at the base. College Hall was designed to be self-contained, sited north of the road with a favourable southern prospect centred on the principal axis passing through the main gates to the principal parade ground of the air station.

The air station's domestic buildings of 1933-4 that replaced the West Camp hutting—particularly York Mess, the Institute of the Initial Officer Training Group Headquarters fronting onto a parade ground and flanking barracks blocks, and the Central Flying School Headquarters—were completed to a high design standard. This dramatic example of Air Ministry planning was designed to enhance the overall effect of College Hall and its grounds through architectural quality and layout, representing a clear response to the Royal Fine Art Commission's recommendations to the Air Ministry of February 1932. The hangars lie to the south facing the main flying area. The airfield is very extensive, with flying fields both north and south, with the public road B1429 separating the two parts.