BUILDINGS 53, 55, 57, 58 AND 292

This group of five simple gabled hutted buildings dates to 1917 and 1918 and were originally used as photographic, gunnery training, workshop, and navigation huts at the Imperial War Museum (formerly RAF Duxford). Constructed by the War Office's Directorate of Fortifications and Works, they were designed with painted brickwork and corrugated asbestos-cement roofing on steel trusses, based on drawing numbers 293/17 (for building 57) and 1852/18 (for building 58).

The huts are arranged in a group; building 53 is at the rear of the site, parallel with the A505 road, while the others are set at right angles, arranged in three parallel rows. All the huts retain their original steel casement windows, featuring 16 panes with four panes in the top half that pivot open. The longer, six-bay huts have external brick buttresses defining the bays and corner details. Each has a plain plank door in the gable end, although building 53 has a door on the south end and building 292 on the west side.

The interiors are plain, featuring timber trusses.

Duxford represents the finest and best-preserved example of a fighter base representative of the period up to 1945, with a uniquely complete group of First World War technical buildings. These modest huts are historically important as they are survivors from the original layout and designs of 1917 and represent the basic designs used in the early years of the Royal Flying Corps. These Training Depot Stations, initiated in 1917 and of which 63 were built by November 1918, comprised the largest airfield construction program of the First World War. They provided training for pilots for service overseas and typically included flying units, sheds, repair hangars, carpenters’ shops, and technical stores.