Officers Mess (Building 70)

This officers' mess was designed by the Air Ministry's Directorate of Works and Buildings to drawing number 45/23. The building is constructed of red brick with slate roofs and brick chimney stacks.

Plan and Layout

The building forms a complex symmetrical group arranged as a wide extended 'H' shape. The central single-storey hipped block contains an ante-room, card and writing rooms connected to the main mess, with billiard rooms behind. The kitchen and service ranges are positioned next to these. Set back on each side, lower connecting corridors link to two-storey accommodation wings containing single rooms accessed from central corridors.

Exterior

The windows are originally timber sash windows set within brick soldier arches with stooled concrete sills. The single-storey central range spans nine bays with gablets to the outer hips. The main entrance porch features Tuscan columns leading to double-leaf inner doors, with a large multi-paned dormer above. A cupola with clock tower sits on the central axis behind the entrance. Four windows flank each side of the porch.

The accommodation blocks have three-bay outer ends and multi-bay returns, with central doors in the end walls. The mansard roofs feature dormers with chimney stacks positioned either side of the ridge.

Interior

Original doors and joinery survive throughout the building. Dog-leg staircases provide access between floors, and classical chimneypieces feature in the principal rooms.

The dining room is particularly notable, with a segmental plaster panelled ceiling above a continuous horizontal moulded architrave. The walls have bolection-moulded panelling, and panelled doors are set in moulded architraves. High-level windows are placed in eared architraves. Above the servery doors, a bowed balcony with metal balustrade provides an elevated viewing position. The bedroom wings were not inspected during the listing assessment, but a high level of detailing was reported to be maintained throughout the building.

Historical Context

This mess building was among the first buildings completed under Trenchard's Home Defence Expansion Scheme, which began in late 1923. The scheme included rebuilding bases in a 'fighter belt' stretching from Duxford near Cambridge to Wiltshire. The design of the mansard roofs derives from the officers' married quarters at Uxbridge, designed by Lieutenant J.G.N. Clifts, one of the first Air Ministry architects appointed in 1918.

The building follows a Domestic Revival style, with a classical porch and central clock tower combined with fine interior treatment in the mess rooms. It represents one of the first buildings constructed for the RAF according to principles of dispersal against aerial attack. The building is the most impressive structure to survive at Northolt and holds particular importance for its historical associations with the Battle of Britain, the Polish airmen who fought for the RAF and the liberation of their country, and its later role as a key fighter station.

RAF Northolt History

No buildings remain from the Home Defence station that opened in March 1915, which played an important role in defending London from the Gotha bomber raids of 1917. After 1920, the station housed a communications flight and was shared with civil operators, including the Central Aircraft Company and its flying school.

Northolt was retained as one of the fighter bases under Trenchard's Home Defence Expansion Scheme. The airfield was improved in 1925 when work began on new permanent buildings including barracks, an operations block and station headquarters. The Air Estimates of March 1928 recorded that £92,500 had been spent on accommodation, hangarage, a watch office and operations block at Northolt. These replaced earlier hutted structures. Other hangars from the First World War period were demolished in 1930 for an A-type hangar and in 1939 for a C-type hangar.

The site's position close to Western Avenue (the A40) facilitated frequent visits by dignitaries to inspect the aerodrome, including Churchill, George VI and high-ranking officers who came to observe Dowding's fighter defence network in operation in the operations block. In January 1938, Northolt became the first station to receive the Hawker Hurricane.

With the onset of the Second World War, the site and its buildings underwent an extensive and successful camouflage programme, including painting houses on the hangars and hedgerows on the ground.

Battle of Britain and Wartime Role

Northolt was one of the fighter bases around London that received runways and fighter pens as part of the infrastructure established by Fighter Command before the Battle of Britain. Although the site has undergone considerable post-war redevelopment, Northolt remains—after Biggin Hill and Debden—the 11 Group sector station that has retained most of its original built fabric. This includes the Officers' Mess, four original barracks blocks, two hangars, the station workshops and operations room, all of which played significant maintenance and operational roles in the Battle.

During the war, Northolt's proximity to London made it the departure point for prominent individuals travelling to international conferences and meetings, including Churchill and Sikorski.

Northolt's greatest importance lies in its role as one of the fighter sector stations in 11 Group. By virtue of its location in England's south-east corner, 11 Group bore the brunt of the Luftwaffe assault during the Battle of Britain. The station holds particularly strong associations with the Polish airmen who fought and died under the RAF. Fifteen percent of Fighter Command's strength in the Battle of Britain came from overseas pilots, with Czechs and Poles forming the largest European contingent.

In August 1940, Number 303 (Kosciusko) Squadron was formed at Northolt as the first Polish squadron to see action. During September, claims were made for 148 enemy aircraft destroyed, with nearly 60 others recorded as 'probables' or damaged. The first bombs fell on Northolt in late September 1940, and in the following month a bomb that dropped between the two hangars caused damage and casualties.

Significance

The airfields associated with the Battle of Britain of 1940—when Britain became the first nation in history to retain its freedom and independence through air power—encompass historic sites and fabric stretching from those used by the RAF to those used by or built especially for the Luftwaffe, including now-protected sites at Paris Le Bourget and Deelen in the Netherlands.

Of all the sites involved in the Battle of Britain, none have greater resonance in popular imagination than the sector airfields 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 Marshal Keith Park from his underground headquarters at RAF Uxbridge, which occupied the front line in this battle. Its 'nerve centre' sector stations at Northolt, North Weald, Biggin Hill, Tangmere, Debden and Hornchurch sustained 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.