Former Squadron Hq (Building 234), Upper Heyford Airbase

Former Squadron Headquarters Building 234, Upper Heyford Airbase

This is a hardened squadron headquarters building, comprising two structurally and chronologically distinct sections that reflect the evolution of Cold War military architecture at the airbase.

The exterior consists of a 1950s 'soft' section to the front and a late 1970s 'hard' section to the rear. The soft section has an offset H-plan, formed of linked single-storey brick buildings with low pitched roofs. In the 1970s these were clad with foam-backed pebbledash insulation. The hard section, connected to the rear of the left-hand range, is a rectangular bunker-like structure of hardened concrete, single-storey except for a raised section at its rear housing a blast-proof inlet for fans.

The soft section is entered through doors into a lobby, from which the main corridor leads left to the hard section. Mid-1980s records indicate the left-hand section's rooms were used for intelligence, weapons and radar analysis, briefings, and contained a photolab with dark room. The internal fixtures and fittings of the soft section are not considered of special historic significance.

A lobby with blast door provides access to the hard structure. Within is a decontamination suite with showers, plant rooms, and a foyer area equipped with a blue Perspex operations display board and fixed wooden desk and console. Map rooms contain sliding wooden display boards. The largest space is the operations and briefing room, with a wooden board on its right wall (facing the front) for recording daily flight details, and the front wall fully covered by a sliding wooden board for displaying maps. This board conceals a square escape hatch fitted with a blast-proof door. Most of the hard section's fixtures and fittings remain in place, including electrical and telephone equipment, map, display and notice boards, showers, and drinking fountain, and are regarded as of special interest.

Upper Heyford was established as a Royal Flying Corps station in 1915 and became an RAF bomber station in the 1920s under the Home Defence Expansion Scheme. In the early 1950s it passed to the United States Air Force's Strategic Air Command as one of four inland bases chosen for their protected location away from England's vulnerable east coast. The base was extensively remodelled with new runways, bomb stores, a control tower, and four Nose Docking Sheds for aircraft maintenance. Between 1953 and 1965, B-47 SAC Stratojets operated from here. The base then transferred to USAF Europe and served reconnaissance aircraft including U-2s, RF-101 Voodoos, and later Phantoms throughout the remainder of the 1960s. In 1970 a new generation of advanced bomber, the F-111, was deployed here. The aircraft's all-weather capability and technical sophistication made it a key component of NATO's nuclear deterrent in the 1970s, carrying the sole United States intermediate-range nuclear deterrent in Europe. Upper Heyford was the only F-111 Wing in Europe until F-111s were allocated to RAF Lakenheath in 1977.

In the 1970s, NATO's policy of hardening and 'dulling down' its main operating bases against conventional, chemical, and biological attack transformed the airbase's appearance. Fifty-six hardened aircraft shelters were constructed, including a new Victor Alert area, four hardened Squadron Headquarters (of which this is one), a hardened Avionics Centre, and a hardened Battle Command Bunker and Telephone Exchange. Following the introduction of Cruise Missiles after 1984, F-111s' role shifted to locating Warsaw Pact mobile SS-20 missiles. In 1986, F-111s from Upper Heyford and Lakenheath conducted a retaliatory strike on Libya that attracted worldwide attention. In 1990, Upper Heyford's F-111s participated in Operation Desert Shield following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, and in Operation Desert Storm to liberate Kuwait. Following the end of the Cold War and partly due to F-111 obsolescence, the USAF withdrew from the base in 1993. Upper Heyford was subsequently returned to the RAF, which declared it surplus to military needs.

Building 234 is the squadron headquarters for the 55th Squadron, one of four such structures at Upper Heyford. Three—this example and Buildings 370 (79th Squadron) and 209 (77th Squadron)—share the same plan of a 1950s soft section to the front and a late 1970s hard section to the rear, to which personnel would withdraw at times of Maximum Alert. A fourth Squadron HQ, Building 383 for the 42nd Squadron, was added in 1984 and comprises a fully-hardened concrete structure with a different layout.