Watch Office And Operations Room At Alconbury Airfield

The Watch Office and Operations Room at Alconbury Airfield was built in 1941. The watch office was constructed according to Air Ministry Directorate of Works and Buildings drawing no. 7345/41 and was later extended to include the operations room based on drawing no. 13079/41. The building features rendered brick with corrugated iron and asbestos roofs. The initial phase included a single-storey watch office on the northeast, followed by a room for teleprinters and then the operations room and kitchen/WC at the southwest end. The operations room was later expanded upwards to add an airfield observation room and extended to the southwest with a crew briefing room designed as a Nissen hut. It has steel casement windows and a flight of steel stairs that provides access to the first-floor door leading to the observation room and the observation area above, which is surrounded by steel railings.

RAF Alconbury became operational as a satellite bomber station in September 1940 and was transferred to the American Eight Air Force in 1942, who began extending the runways for four-engined bombers. The American presence continued until the base closed in 1993. This control tower with the attached operations room is the best-preserved example of a standard type built for bomber satellite stations during the Second World War. Control towers are among the most architecturally distinctive and recognizable examples of the standard building types constructed on military airfields during this period, with 214 being built.