21-24, VINCENT SQUARE (See details for further address information)

Terrace of four houses, numbered 21-24, forming part of a group of 26 dwellings constructed in 1929 by the Air Ministry's Directorate of Works and Buildings. The houses are located at the north end of the east side of Vincent Square.

The terrace is built of painted brickwork with cavity walls and slate roofs, with lead covering to the bay windows. The four dwellings are arranged in a short straight terrace, each entered from the right, with living, dining and kitchen on the ground floor, and three bedrooms above. Originally, there were four open fireplaces, two on each floor, positioned on the party wall to the left.

The block has gabled ends and four face-gables above windows to the front and rear, separated by short runs of plain eaves. The windows are casements with one horizontal glazing-bar, set in plain reveals and concrete sub-sills. On the first floor, a 3-light casement is centred to the gable; on the ground floor, a 4-light window is set in a square bay with plain cheeks and hipped roof. To the right of each house is a panelled door with part-glazed upper part, flanked by plain pilasters with concrete consoles carrying a flat hood with bold rolled edge on a bed-mould. To the left of each house, including the left gable end, stands a large ridge stack with deep stepped capping. The rear elevation is similar to the front, but features a 2-light window to the face gable and a smaller 2-light window at the eaves to the left; the ground floor has a 3-light door and side light. The end gables are plain.

The interior has not been inspected; the houses were restored by a Housing Association as part of the renovation of the entire Square.

These houses form part of the best-preserved group of married quarters at this site, typically designed on Garden City principles and predating the post-1934 Expansion Period of the RAF. They relate to a nationally important historic aviation site. Land for the new married quarters was purchased in 1923-5. Six of the original houses were demolished following the 1940 raids, but the remaining group of 26 was planned as an elongated square around a central grassed area.

Biggin Hill acquired a reputation as the most famous fighter station in the world, primarily through its associations with the Battle of Britain, the first time in history that a nation retained its freedom and independence through air power. It was developed as a key fighter station in the inter-war period and played a critical role in the development of the air defence system based on radar, which proved crucial in the Second World War. Of all the sites involved in the Battle of Britain, the sector airfields within 11 Group, commanded by Air Vice-Marshal Keith Park from his underground headquarters at RAF Uxbridge, held the greatest resonance in the popular imagination. These sector stations at Northolt, North Weald, Biggin Hill, Tangmere, Debden and Hornchurch bore the brunt of the Luftwaffe onslaught and, in Churchill's words, 'on whose organisation and combination the whole fighting power of our Air Force at this moment depended'. Between 24 August and 6 September, these airfields and later aircraft factories became the Luftwaffe's prime targets.