Building No 89 (Guard And Fire Party House)

Guard and Fire Party House

A guardhouse with exercise yard and accommodation for a fire party, built in 1926 by the Air Ministry's Directorate of Works and Buildings to drawing number 959/25.

The building is constructed of dark brick laid in Flemish bond with some sections in stretcher bond. It has a slate gambrel roof with some flat concrete extensions and a brick chimney stack.

The plan comprises a long rectangular building containing the guardhouse and office with cells. The roof sweeps down over a non-enclosed verandah at the front, and at the rear is a walled exercise yard. The verandah is supported on four square chamfered concrete posts set to stone pads, with broad impost blocks on a shallow concrete platform. The sloping soffit is boarded. Steel casements with flush chamfered concrete lintels and stooled sills are set throughout, with one doorway and one blocked doorway visible. Flat-roofed bays at each end contain plank doors with over-lights. Large double casements open to the rear. A square timber bell-turret with a clad skirt and small metal cupola is centred over the verandah at the ridge. The walled rear enclosure is built in stretcher bond and rises to a parapet at main eaves level, with metal vents serving the rear cells.

Internally, the building retains its original joinery, including wooden cell doors with original fittings.

This was part of the first phase of permanent buildings on RAF Bicester's Technical Site, all mostly dating to 1926 with others added during the 1930s Expansion Period. It is thought to be the only surviving example of this larger version of guardhouse from its period, and is prominently sited at the main gate facing the Station Offices across the main axial route that bisects the technical site and leads to the hangars and flying field.

RAF Bicester is the best-preserved of the bomber bases constructed as the principal arm of Sir Hugh Trenchard's expansion of the RAF from 1923, which was based on the philosophy of offensive deterrence. The site retains, better than any other military airbase in Britain, the layout and fabric relating to both pre-1930s military aviation and the development of Britain's strategic bomber force in the period up to 1939. The grass flying field still survives with its 1939 boundaries largely intact, bounded by a group of bomb stores built in 1938/9 and airfield defences built in the early stages of the Second World War. For much of the Second World War, RAF Bicester functioned as an Operational Training Unit, training Canadian, Australian and New Zealand air crews as well as British personnel for service in Bomber Command. These OTUs, of which Bicester now forms the premier surviving example, fulfilled the critical requirement of enabling bomber crews—once individual members had trained in flying, bombing, gunnery and navigation—to form and train as units.