Building No 123 (Lecture Rooms And Armoury)

Station Armoury with Lecture Rooms, RAF Bicester Technical Site

Built in 1926 with a cross-wing added in 1936, this building was designed by the Air Ministry's Directorate of Works and Buildings (drawing numbers 1052/24 and 541-3/35). It is constructed of dark red Flemish bond brickwork with a slate roof.

The building follows a T-plan, consisting of two distinct sections. The main 2-storey range contains laboratory lecture rooms, offices, workshop and library spaces. This continues as a one-storey flat-roofed unit housing the armoury, ammunition testing bays and machine-gun stores, with the armoury section arranged in independent rooms with steel doors.

The 2-storey range features tall casement windows with flush concrete lintels and stooled sills, arranged in 7 bays plus 3 bays across the front elevation, with 4 bays returning at the end, all set beneath hipped roofs to box eaves. The rear elevation is similar in treatment, except for one bay containing staircase windows at dropped levels. A blast wall extends across the front, with concrete stairs descending to a basement. Steel escape stairs are positioned at the left end. A 3-brick projecting plat-band runs at upper sill level, with a small ridge stack near the right-hand end.

The flat-roofed armoury block has garage doors to the outer end, three windows to the front, a series of small lights, and two doors with over-lights to the rear.

The interior was substantially remodelled in the 1980s.

As one of the original buildings at the Technical Site, this structure represents an early permanent design for Britain's independent air force. The cross-wing was carefully matched in materials and detail to the original 1926 work. The building is prominently sited, facing the main central avenue bisecting the site. RAF Bicester remains the best-preserved of the inter-war bomber bases and retains the layout and fabric relating to both pre-1930s military aviation and the development of Britain's strategic bomber force during the period up to 1939.