Building No 90 (Main Stores)

Main Station Stores

This main stores building at RAF Bicester's Technical Site was constructed in 1926 to drawing number 978/25 by the Air Ministry's Directorate of Works and Buildings. It is built in stretcher bond brickwork with asbestos slate roofs.

The building forms a complex single-storey plan, comprising two long gabled sheds linked at the right-hand end by a slightly higher hipped return, which encloses a narrow courtyard. Attached to the rear north side is a shorter group of three gabled units. The building originally served for general storage of items such as clothing and furniture, and includes raised unloading bays to a former railway line on the right side.

The main front elevation features a series of steel casement windows set to flush concrete lintels with stooled sills, two of which have louvres. The two left-hand gables have similar casement windows, a blocked doorway, and a central plank door serving the narrow courtyard. The right return originally contained three wide openings on a raised platform, separated by piers with blue bull-nosed engineering bricks; the two outer bays have since been filled with brickwork, and the loading platform has been cut back to serve the centre bay only. Low plank doors flank each side, the right one bearing a date-stone above. At the rear are four windows, and approximately four metres of roofing lacks slates, being felted only. The gabled ranges have wide doorways at each end and a plain north front. The long roof slopes of the main range feature continuous patent glazing.

Internally, the spaces are plain with roof structures formed in steel trusses supported on interior brick piers. Half-glazed sliding doors serve workshops, and panelled doors access offices.

The Technical Site at Bicester, a separate precinct from the Domestic Site, retains many original buildings predominantly dating from 1926, with further additions made during the 1930s Expansion Period. This building occupies a prominent position on the main axial route bisecting the technical site and leading towards the hangars and flying field, located opposite the Motor Transport sheds. As part of the first phase of construction on this uniquely important site, it represents an unusually unaltered example of early permanent designs created for Britain's independent air force.

Bicester is the best-preserved bomber base constructed during Sir Hugh Trenchard's expansion of the RAF from 1923 onwards, founded on a philosophy of offensive deterrence. It retains, better than any other military airbase in Britain, the layout and fabric relating to pre-1930s military aviation and the development of Britain's strategic bomber force, demonstrating how this expansion reflected both domestic political pressures and international events up to 1939. The policy of offensive deterrence dominated British air power and the RAF's existence as an independent military arm throughout the inter-war period, and continued to shape its direction during the Second World War and the Cold War. The grass flying field survives with its 1939 boundaries largely intact, bounded by bomb stores built in 1938–9 and airfield defences constructed 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 alongside British personnel for service in Bomber Command. These Operational Training Units, 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 operational units.