6, 7 AND 8, VINCENT SQUARE (See details for further address information)

Terrace of three houses, formerly four, forming part of a group of 26 married quarters at Biggin Hill. Designed in 1929 by the Air Ministry's Directorate of Works and Buildings, these houses exemplify the Garden City principles applied to RAF accommodation.

The terrace is constructed in painted cavity brickwork with a slate roof and lead to the bay windows. It forms a short straight terrace of two storeys, with a hipped roof to the right and a gable to the left. Each dwelling is entered from the right side, with living, dining and kitchen on the ground floor, and three bedrooms above. Originally there were four open fireplaces, two to each floor, set on the party wall to the left. The terrace occupies the west side of the square, with a gap to its left adjacent to houses 1 to 4. House number 5 was damaged by bombing and has not been replaced.

The exterior features plain wooden sash windows in half-brick reveals with concrete sub-sills. At first floor level there are three windows separated by narrow brick piers, with the outer lights narrower than the centre. Below these is a canted flat-roofed bay with brick mullions, containing large central and smaller side lights. The entrance, positioned to the right on two steps, comprises a flush panelled door with a square glazed top panel, sheltered by a flat concrete hood with a roll-mould edge on concrete brackets. The terrace has two large ridge stacks to the left of each house, and a gable stack at the left, exposed where the former party wall of house 5 stood. The stacks have deep stepped cappings. The end returns are plain. The back elevation has a double sash window with brick mullion at first floor above a large replacement casement, with a door to the left and a small side light. Centred on the party wall between houses 6 and 7 is a small stone carved with the date 1929. Simple eaves run to three sides, with a clipped gable verge to the left.

The interior was not inspected. The houses have been restored by a housing association as part of the renovation of the whole square.

This group represents one of the best preserved sets of married quarters predating the post-1934 RAF Expansion Period, designed according to Garden City principles at a nationally important historic aviation site. Land for the married quarters was purchased in 1923 to 1925. Six of the houses in the original group were demolished following the 1940 raids, but the remaining 26 houses still form the planned layout of 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 role in the Battle of Britain—the first instance in history when a nation retained its freedom and independence through air power. It was developed as a key fighter station during the inter-war period and played a critical role in developing the radar-based air defence system that proved essential in the Second World War. Of all sites involved in the Battle of Britain, the sector airfields bore the greatest burden of Luftwaffe attack. Biggin Hill was among the sector stations—including Northolt, North Weald, Tangmere, Debden and Hornchuck—that sustained the most intensive assaults, particularly between 24 August and 6 September 1940, when these airfields and aircraft factories became the Luftwaffe's prime targets. The defence of these stations was coordinated by 11 Group, commanded by Air Vice Marshal Keith Park from his underground headquarters at RAF Uxbridge, with the sector stations serving as the critical nerve centres on which, as Churchill observed, the entire fighting power of the Air Force at that moment depended.