Building 72 (Workshops)

DUXFORD

1767/0/10033 SOUTH CAMP, IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM (FORME 01-DEC-05 R RAF DUXFORD) Building 72 (Workshops)

GV II Former engine repair shop, coppersmiths' shop and blacksmith's shop. 1917, by the War Office's Directorate of Fortifications and Works. Drawing No 288/17. Painted brickwork, slate roofing on steel trusses.

PLAN: A simple gabled shed, with a small boiler room added at the NE corner.

EXTERIOR: All windows are steel 16-pane casements incorporating a 4-pane pivot hung section in the upper half. The S front has 5 windows each side of a full-height wide pair of plank doors. The return to the right has 2 similar casements, that to the right modified, two doors, one with louvres, and a further door to the small flat-roofed extension, from which rises a tall steel stack. The back has a range of steel casements; there is a small brick stack at the left-hand gable end, and four patent-glazing ridge roof-lights.

INTERIOR: Plain, with metal trusses

HISTORY: Duxford is the finest and best-preserved example of a fighter base representative of the period up to 1945 in Britain, with a uniquely complete group of First World War technical buildings in addition to technical and domestic buildings typical of both inter-war Expansion Periods of the RAF. It also has important associations with the Battle of Britain and the American fighter support for the Eighth Air Force. See descriptions of the aircraft hangars for further historical details.

This building is historically important, since it remains from the original layout and designs of 1917; it has survived with minimum external change, and is representative of the basic designs in use for aircraft repair shops during the early years of military aviation. It is closely associated with the main hangar group immediately to the south. The Training Depot Station at Duxford is the most complete WWI airfield group, with hangars and ancillary buildings, in Britain. The training of pilots for service overseas formed a critical aspect of Britain's air service in the First World War period, and the Training Depot Stations - initiated in 1917, and of which 63 were built by November 1918 - comprised the largest airfield construction programme of the First World War period. Each TDS comprised three flying units, each having a coupled general service shed, and one repair section hangar (the only surviving examples of the latter is at Old Sarum, Wiltshire) for the provision of serviceable engines and aircraft. Other specialist buildings, such as carpenters' shops, dope and engine repair shops, and technical and plane stores, characterised these sites.