Flying Boat Hangar

Flying Boat Hanger or Shed built 1917 to 1918 and designed by HM Office of Works under Sir Frank Baines. The area covered by the hangar is nearly 7,000 square metres. There are a number of later additions which include a re-clad brick building extension at the east end

EXTERIOR: the hangar has colour-coated corrugated steel cladding, replacing the original steel cladding, with a saw tooth profile roof of four apexes with northlight glazing. It has, on its south, east and west elevations, raking angle-iron buttresses. In some cases the light angle-framed buttresses have been reinforced by adding short horizontal or sloping sections of rectangular-section steel tube site-welded to the original angle-framing. Sliding doors open the whole of the north long axis of the hangar to the apron. Door apertures formerly embodied in the rear (south) elevation appear to have been overclad, modified or removed to achieve a different arrangement of smaller doors. Vertical glazing in the external walls and the sliding doors of the north elevation, as well as the glazing of the northlights, is of double or triple-wall polycarbonate sheet, replacing original glazing. The later extensions including the re-clad brick building extension at the east end are not of special interest.

INTERIOR: the saw-tooth-profile roof is supported on deep lattice trusses with stanchions and steel rakers. Small-section channels have been bolted to the undersides of one of the two original angles which make up the tie-beams of the lateral steel trusses to stiffen the small-section tie beams. The former unitary volume of the hangar has been subdivided to accommodate different work areas. These changes have included the installation of a broad mezzanine floor extending along the interior’s south side which is supported on independent ‘goalpost’ steel-joist portals, bolted down to the concrete ground-floor through holding down plates. The individual uses to which the building is now put are accommodated in a simple orthogonal arrangement of the space between the rear mezzanine and the north-elevation sliding doors. Some uses require complete containment which has been achieved through free standing structures sitting within the former unitary space. The mezzanine structure and modern inserted subdivisions of the hangar are not of special interest.