Control Tower, Bassingbourn Barracks (Former Raf Bassingbourn)

Control Tower, Bassingbourn Barracks (former RAF Bassingbourn)

This control tower was built in 1936 to designs of the Air Ministry's Directorate of Works and Buildings, and was adapted in 1943. It is constructed of rendered brick with an asphalt roof.

The building is two storeys tall. The ground floor contains a watch office at the front, with a meteorological office, switch room and lavatories positioned to the rear. The first floor has a control room at the front, with a controller's rest room and signals office to the rear.

The exterior is characterised by large multi-paned steel casements to the front elevation and the flank walls of the first-floor control room and ground-floor watch office, designed to provide clear views of the flying field. External access to the control room is provided by steel stairs on the return elevation. Smaller steel casements serve the rear part of the side and rear elevations. A centrally-placed door is positioned on the rear elevation.

Internally, the building contains a cast-iron stair.

Bassingbourn opened as a medium bomber base in March 1938. Although it was associated with some of the RAF's first 1000 bomber raids, the airfield is more widely known for its function from 1942 as the United States Army Air Forces' flagship station. The control tower, based on a 1934 design, was extended in association with the remodelling and extension of the airfield in 1942, prior to the arrival of the 91st Bomber Group in October. The proximity to Cambridge and London facilitated visits by many dignitaries, including General Eisenhower and the King and Queen. The 'Ragged Irregulars' were chosen as the subject of William Wyler's celebrated colour film of an American bomber raid, known as the 'Memphis Belle'. The station was also home to the restored 'Shoo Shoo Baby', now housed in the Wright Patterson Museum in Dayton, Ohio. One of the four 'C-type' hangars has been demolished.

The control tower is one of a very small number surviving on Second World War airfields which are either exceptionally well-preserved or have distinguished operational histories. The iconic value of control towers both as operational nerve centres and as memorials to the enormous losses sustained by American and Commonwealth forces in the Strategic Bomber Offensive has long been recognised.