Gaydon hangar at RAF Wittering

MATERIALS: Reinforced concrete north and south walls, and steel-framed east and west doorways clad with galvanised corrugated steel sheet under an segmental roof of transverse and longitudinal tubular steel lattice trusses finished with ridged steel sheeting, which was replaced in 1997.

PLAN: The hangar has a simple rectangular plan aligned with sliding full-width doors in the short sides. Ancillary brick office buildings of the 1970s are arranged along the south side and three plant rooms are sited to the north.

EXTERIOR: The structure consists of a wide hangar shed under a segmentally-arched roof. This descends on the north and south sides to tall concrete and brick side walls with upper clerestory glazing, with, at the east and west ends, steel-framed screen walls terminating in reinforced concrete corner piers. From these piers are latticed steel gantries extending to the north and south, each the width of the seven full-height overlapping hangar doors, and are fitted with upper runners. Four corresponding recessed rails are set into the concrete apron, and when fully open the seven doors slide into the gantries. The central door is taller, and designed to take the high tail plane of the English Electric Canberra B2 and V-force bombers (the Canberra had a wingspan of 19.51m and a tail 4.77m high; the Vickers Valiant had a 34.85m wingspan and a tail height of 9.8m).

The north and south elevations each have six reinforced concrete bays with clerestory glazing of twenty panes in each bay. Against the south side is a long range of single-storey flat-roofed offices built in stretcher-bond brick in the 1970s, which are not of special interest. The north side has three full-height steel-framed plant rooms, variously modified and rebuilt in the 1980s and 1990s, also not of special interest.

INTERIOR: The interior of the hangar is one single large space, with a coated concrete floor and seven triangular lattice tubular steel segmental roof trusses springing from the north and south concrete piers. Thirteen similar but smaller flat longitudinal lattice trusses run above them in an east-west direction. Attached to the underside of the roof trusses are six longitudinal triple radiant tube heating pipes of 1984-86. Much of the fenestration on the north side has been bricked up due to the addition of the plant rooms.