Building No 23 And 25 (Type H Barracks Block)

Airmen's barracks blocks at RAF Bicester, built in 1939 to a 1938 design by the Air Ministry's Directorate of Works and Buildings (drawing numbers 1132 and 11587/38).

The buildings form a pair of two-storey structures in an H-plan, with reinforced concrete floors and roof supported on Flemish bond brickwork walls. The roof was originally finished in asphalt. Building 25 (the larger unit) accommodated 84 airmen and 8 NCOs, while Building 23 (the smaller) housed 56 airmen and 8 NCOs. Each room was designed to accommodate a maximum of 12 airmen. Both buildings were provided with basement air-raid shelters for 40 persons, each with a separate escape exit beyond the building.

The plan consists of a central entrance to each wing leading to a central open-well staircase and internal corridors with rooms on either side. Further staircases are located at the junctions with the cross wing, which also contains service facilities including a utility room.

The exterior features steel 10-pane vertical casements to the wings, with some horizontal units to the cross wing set against continuous thin concrete lintel and sill bands. The outer fronts of the wings are arranged in 2:5:2 bays (1:5:1 to Building 23), with a central pair of panelled doors flanked by rendered concrete cheeks to the west and brick cheeks to the east fronts. The ends of the wings are plain, although a door was added to the south end of the west wing in Building 25. The returns comprise 3 and 2 bays with vertical casements. The recessed cross wing features stair windows framing horizontal casements on one face, with similar but smaller lights on the reverse front. The walls rest on a slight projecting brick plinth with air vents, and above the upper lintel band sits a 3-brick frieze below a simple projecting flat roof edge.

The interior contains original solid string concrete staircases with terrazzo finish, hardwood swept handrails on steel flat standards, and 4 rails. The rooms have since been adapted to commercial office use.

These buildings represent well-presented examples of late Expansion Period design with Art Deco overtones. They exemplified a new approach in which slightly more space per occupant was provided, ceilings were lowered from 10 feet to 9 feet (3 metres to 2.74 metres), and, for the first time, a basement air-raid shelter was incorporated. The buildings are grouped symmetrically on the axis of the Dining Room and Institute, set at an angle to the earlier buildings to the south and parallel with Skimmingdish Lane. They comprise key elements in the development of this uniquely well-preserved and historically important site, grouped with the contemporary Institute and boiler house to the north of the earlier buildings. These 1938-type designs featured flat concrete roofs built for protection against incendiary devices and displayed a more consciously modern style than earlier Expansion Period designs.

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, founded on a philosophy of offensive deterrence. It 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. For much of the Second World War, RAF Bicester functioned as an Operational Training Unit, training Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand as well as British air crews for service in Bomber Command. These OTUs fulfilled the critical requirement of enabling bomber crews to form and train as units once individual members had trained in flying, bombing, gunnery, and navigation.