Officers' Mess and Single Officers' Quarters (Building 10-11) at former RAF West Raynham

Officers' Mess and Single Officers' Quarters at former RAF West Raynham

This officers' mess and single officers' quarters was built in 1937–1938 to a design by JH Binge. The design was based on an original 1934 template for such buildings by Archibald Bulloch FRIBA, architectural adviser to the Air Ministry's Directorate of Works and Buildings. The building has been subject to later alterations and additions.

The structure is constructed of fair-faced brick, which retains remains of camouflage paint in places, with pantile roofs and brick stacks.

The building faces south and stands on an east to west alignment with a complex, wide, extended H-plan. A single lateral corridor forms the horizontal axis of the H, centred on the building's principal range (the mess proper). This corridor divides the public rooms on the south side from the kitchen wing and service rooms on the north side. The corridor runs continuously via single-storey link blocks to two-storey accommodation wings which form the outer arms of the H.

The main mess range is a tall single storey. Along the south side of the corridor it accommodates a central entrance hall, a large ante-room (or sitting room), a billiard room, and a combined card room and writing room. The dining room, the largest room in the block, is set transversely on the corridor's north side. The remainder of the rear element to the north of the corridor is occupied by the kitchen and associated ancillary facilities, offices, lavatories and storerooms for provisions. Intermixed with these are domestic rooms for mess staff, with dormitories for live-in servants placed above the mess office and scullery in a two-storey range at the rear. The two-storey accommodation wings have central spine corridors off which are individual rooms for junior officers, twin-rooms for officers of the rank of Squadron Leader or above, along with bathrooms, lavatories and service rooms. On the north side of the western link corridor is a former Nissen hut placed in the late 20th century to accommodate a lounge bar.

All windows are double-hung wood sashes with glazing bars, set to flush boxes with gauged brick heads and concrete sills to the ground floor, and flat heads and concrete sills to the first floor. All roofs are hipped, with parapets to the main range, the rear dining room and rear two-storey service wing. Most ground-floor windows and doorways were boarded up in the early 21st century for security reasons.

The principal elevation of the mess range, facing south, comprises 11 symmetrical bays. The centre three bays project slightly with a raised parapet to form a round-arched entrance loggia with square columns and two rows of brick headers around the heads. This gives access to three corresponding round-arched doorways, again with two rows of brick headers to the heads, all with French windows and radial fanlights. Above, two rectangular stacks with flush concrete caps rise from the ridge in line at either end of the porch. All other bays have tall twelve-over-sixteen sashes. Both returns have a further two identical windows.

The central range is attached to the flanking accommodation wings by three-bay corridor links with French windows.

The two-storey accommodation wings are largely identical in plan, measuring 15 by 3 bays. The three-bay entrance fronts have central round-arched entrance doors with half-glazed wooden doors giving access to small vestibules with round-headed, multi-pane, wooden doors to the spine corridors. All other bays are lit by six-over-six sashes. The 15-bay outer faces have six-over-six sashes throughout. The inner faces have varied fenestration, including six-over-six sashes to the bedrooms and a series of smaller four-over-two service lights to lavatories and bathrooms, along with large nine-over-nine staircase windows. The three-bay rear elevations have six-over-six sashes to all but the central first-floor bay, which has a later 20th-century fire-escape door opening onto a spiral staircase.

Projecting at the centre of the rear of the main range is a two-storey wing with a hipped roof with sprocketed eaves. Originally housing a mess office and scullery on the ground floor and dormitories for live-in servants above, it is of three bays. The centre bay projects with a hipped roof with sprocketed eaves and has a flat-headed doorway with a round-headed relieving arch, above which is a six-over-six sash. The two flanking bays have six-over-six sashes to the ground floor and two-over-four sashes to the first floor. Projecting to its right and left respectively, and linked to it by single-storey flat-roofed ranges, is a two-storey service wing with a small single-storey range adjoining its north side. A tall dining room adjoins this wing, measuring 5 by 2 bays, with twelve-over-sixteen sashes to each bay on its north and east sides; its south side adjoins the lateral corridor and its west side connects with the kitchen.

The loggia at the centre of the mess range opens into a large entrance hall joined at either end by an east–west-aligned lateral corridor with paired multi-pane doors. The hall has very shallow semi-circular recesses on the east and west walls and three recesses with semi-circular fanlights on the rear (north) wall. The walls are lined with plywood panelling originally designed to imitate oak but now painted. The hall is flanked on the east side by a large ante-room (or sitting room) and on the west side by a billiard room and a combined card and writing room. On the north side of the lateral corridor, placed at a right angle to the main range, is a large dining room.

All these rooms are in a restrained Georgian style with tall ceilings. Those in the ante-room (or sitting room) and dining room have shallow barrel vaults. They feature low plywood dados imitating oak, plain skirting boards, panelled walls, moulded cornices and paired multi-pane doors in moulded architraves. The billiard room contains a stone fireplace flanked by two alcoves, while the ante-room has a plywood panelled fireplace.

The flanking accommodation wings are largely identical, with bedrooms, bathrooms, toilets, box rooms, drying rooms and stewards' rooms arranged on either side of central spine corridors. There are two types of bedroom arrangement in both wings: a combined bedroom and sitting room for junior officers, and a bedroom with a separate sitting room for senior officers. Built-in wardrobes are present in every bedroom, although the accompanying wash basins have largely been vandalised, along with coat racks, picture rails, skirting boards and pelmets. All original fireplaces in the sitting rooms have been removed and the openings blocked up. The doors are later 20th-century replacements, as is the sanitary ware in the bathrooms, showers and lavatories. There are two staircases: one for officers, which is a dog-leg stair with a closed string, square newel post and stick balusters supporting a moulded handrail; and a much plainer one for servants with metal stick balusters supporting a wooden handrail.