Control Tower, Former Raf Little Staughton

GREAT STAUGHTON

48/0/10001 Control Tower, former RAF Little Staug 01-DEC-05 hton

GV II Control Tower. 1942. Built to designs of the Air Ministry's Directorate of Works and Buildings, as Bomber Satellite Stations design, to Drawing No. 13726/41. Rendered brick with asphalt roof.

PLAN: Ground floor has watch office to front with meteorological office, switch room and lavatories to rear; first floor has control room to front, with controller's rest room and signals office to rear, opening onto passage with access to stairs.

EXTERIOR: 2 storeys; 2-window front. Large multi-paned steel casements to front and to flank walls of first-floor control room, providing clear views of the flying field, with smaller windows below. Access from steel stairs on return elevation to concrete balcony with tubular steel railings and with iron columns providing support. Smaller steel casements to rear part of side and rear elevations. Doors to left-hand and rear elevations.

INTERIOR: Not inspected.

HISTORY: This is one of a very small number of control towers of the Second World War period that have survived in a substantially complete state of preservation. The Pathfinder Mosquitos of 109 Squadron and Lancasters of 583 Squadron, active from April 1944 at this base, marked targets for Bomber Command's precision raids, more famously for those of 617 Squadron. This is an exceptionally well-preserved example of a 1941 control tower design for bomber satellite stations, of which 24 out of 45 built survive.

In the second half of the 1930s, increasing attention was being given to the dispersal and shelter of aircraft from attack, ensuring serviceable landing and take-off areas, and the control of movement: the result was the development of the control tower and the planning from 1938 of the first airfields with runways and perimeter tracks. The control tower, which first appeared as a recognisable design in 1934, became the most distinctive and instantly recognisable building associated with military airfields, particularly in the Second World War when they served as foci for base personnel as they awaited the return of aircraft from operations. This is one of a very small number of control towers on Second World War airfields which are either exceptionally well-preserved or have distinguished operational histories. Their iconic value both as operational nerve centres and as memorials to the enormous losses sustained by American and Commonwealth forces in the course of the Strategic Bomber Offensive has long been recognised. A deserted control tower, for example, was the focus of the opening scenes of Richard Asquith's film The Way to the Stars (1945), which explored the thoughts of a veteran returning to a deserted airbase, as a ploughshare pulled by a horse team returned land formerly used to wage aggressive war to agriculture.