Building 15, Hawkinge Block, West Camp

785/0/10108 A233 01-DEC-05 Former RAF Biggin Hill, Westerham (East side) Building 15, Hawkinge Block, West Camp

GV II Barrack block. Dated 1934. By the Air Ministry's Directorate of Works and Buildings. Dark red brickwork in stretcher bond, hipped (originally slate) concrete tile roof.

PLAN: Dormitory rooms on each side of central entrance and staircase.

EXTERIOR: Single-storey. Three 12-pane sashes each side of central entrance, flanking a central pair of 3-panel doors in a cast stone heavy pilaster surround with moulded flat cornice Windows set to brick voussoirs, and with stooled sills. Roofs are all slightly swept to the box eaves with deep soffits. Six sashes to rear elevation. Smaller 8-pane sash to small service annexe to left of front.

INTERIOR: retains original doors and joinery.

HISTORY: This barracks block, constructed to designs established during the post-1923 expansion of the RAF, has been externally little-altered since the Second World War.

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 had retained its freedom and independence through air power. It was developed as a key fighter station in the inter-war period, playing a critical role in the development of the air defence system - based on radar - that played a critical role in the Second World War. Of all the sites which became involved in The Battle of Britain, none have greater resonance in the popular imagination than those of the sector airfields within these Groups which 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'. It was 11 Group, commanded by Air Vice Marshall Keith Park from his underground headquarters at RAF Uxbridge, which occupied the front line in this battle, with its 'nerve centre' sector stations at Northolt, North Weald, Biggin Hill, Tangmere, Debden and Hornchurch taking some of the most sustained attacks of the battle, especially between 24 August and 6 September when these airfields and later aircraft factories became the Luftwaffe's prime targets.

For further details of the history of the site, see advice and description for Station Headquarters.