G1 Building At The Royal Aircraft Establishment

G1 Building at the Royal Aircraft Establishment

Headquarters of No 1 (Airship) Company of the Air Battalion of the Royal Engineers, built in 1911. The building comprises a two-storey headquarters block with an attached single-storey balloon equipment store arranged in a rectangular plan. It is constructed with roughcast over a steel frame with brick infill panels, a gabled pantile roof (replacing the original diagonally-set asbestos cement tiles), and rendered brick chimney stacks.

The headquarters building is divided into five bays by pilasters expressing the steel frame. The exterior features a bracketed flat canopy over the main entrance to the left of centre, with double-leaf bolection-panelled doors and a small-paned overlight. The upper floors have horned 6/6-pane sashes. To the right of the main entrance are steel-framed windows with centre-hung casements and two associated doors with overlights, which served the balloon store extension. Similar sashes appear on the left-hand and rear elevations, with steel-framed windows at ground-floor level to the rear.

The balloon store is similarly divided into bays. Its front elevation has six steel-framed windows with centre-hung casements. The return wall to the right end (hipped) contains two similar windows, whilst the rear elevation has four double doors with overlights and one original steel-framed window.

The interior of the headquarters building features a steel-framed roof to the balloon store. The entrance hall contains half-glazed inner porch doors, an open-well stair with stick balusters and wreathed handrail, and is lit through a spine wall by a steel-framed window adjacent to a tall door with small-paned overlight leading to the rear office. The headquarters area retains timber skirtings, architraves, dados moulded into plaster walls, and chimneypieces of typically eclectic classical designs for the period.

Historical Context

This building marks a nationally important place in the development of military aviation in Britain. Farnborough holds prime importance in the history of military aviation through the activities of army balloonists and aeronauts from the late 19th century onwards. The Royal Engineers formed a Balloon Equipment Store at Woolwich Arsenal in 1879, which was successively relocated to Chatham (1882), Aldershot (1890), and finally to Farnborough (1905). The operational and training units were combined as the Balloon Factory in April 1906. Between 1910 and 1911, two more airship sheds were erected adjacent to a new Portable Airship Shed (a canvas-covered structure with parabolic arch made of riveted box-section lattice units, later dismantled and surviving in two halves in listed buildings Q27 and Q25). By November 1918, Britain's total of airship sheds had increased to 61, though only those at Farnborough and Cardington have survived to the present day.

The Royal Engineers' Balloon Section built the first British Army aeroplane, flown in October 1908 by American Samuel Cody, who had worked on kite and balloon development at Farnborough. Under R.B. Haldane, Secretary of State for War from 1906 to 1911, aviation was placed on a scientific footing. An Advisory Committee on Aeronautics was established to oversee research at the National Physical Laboratory and the Aircraft Factory at Farnborough.

The Air Battalion of the Royal Engineers was formally established in April 1911, and the headquarters of No 1 (Airship) Company was immediately set up on this site. This unit became 1 Squadron of the Royal Flying Corps upon the RFC's formation on 13 May 1912, and subsequently served as the Royal Naval Air Service's Airship Detachment until the completion of Kingsnorth in March 1915. Whilst No 2 (Aeroplane) Company was based at Larkhill in Wiltshire, No 1 (Airship) Company at Farnborough was responsible for training personnel in handling kites, balloons and aeroplanes. This headquarters building is an outstanding and unique survival from this period, representing a school building with attached balloon mobilisation store. One hangar, The Black Sheds, survives from the pre-First World War air station.