Building Number 31 (Sergeants Mess)

Sergeants' Mess

This single-storey building was constructed in 1924 by the Air Ministry's Directorate of Works and Buildings (drawing number 191/24) and altered and extended in 1935. It is built in stretcher bond brickwork with a slate roof and brick stacks.

The building has a near-symmetrical front elevation facing south, with a central rear wing containing kitchens and an extended wing to the left. The plan comprises an entrance to the right of centre leading into a lobby, with a billiard room to the right, reading and writing rooms to the centre, and the main dining room to the left. The dining room was originally designed for 40 members but was extended in 1935 to accommodate an additional 25. The original asymmetrical elevation was made symmetrical by the addition of the left-hand gable.

The entrance front features slightly projecting end gables, coped in brick and shouldered on corbelled brackets, over wide semi-circular arched openings with herring-bone brickwork spandrels set flush. Above these are a 3-light casement with transom to the left and a later pair of inserted doors to the right. The recessed centre has an external eaves stack flanked on each side by 3 windows, and the original pair of main doors to the right. The right return incorporates a complex bay with a large external stack with swept hunches, beyond which are stores with a later extension. The long left-hand elevation has two external eaves stacks, a near-central panelled door with a 2-light casement to its left, and a small light at each end beyond the stacks. Both gable ends are coped. The roofs are slightly swept up to a boxed eaves. To the rear is the hipped kitchen range.

The interior retains original joinery including panelled doors and cornicing to the principal rooms, along with king post trusses to the roofs.

This building represents an unusually well-preserved example of an RAF barracks building from the inter-war period, retaining the architectural style of the first phase of permanent RAF buildings. It was the first permanent RAF Sergeants' Mess design and reflects the development of Air Ministry policy through its 1935 extension. The extension was necessitated by changes in RAF personnel policy: the original design had been based on the assumption that 50% of sergeants were married and would not use the mess, but the growth in the number of sergeant pilots (of whom only 10% were entitled to be married) meant the original accommodation proved inadequate. Despite the extension, the building became too small, and in 1939 the sergeants relocated to the former Officers' Mess (Building 16), after which this building served as a barracks unit.

The building is prominently located on the axis of the later Dining Room and Institute (Building 20), set at an angle to the north end of the Parade Ground and flanked by Type 'E' barracks blocks. RAF Bicester is the best-preserved of the bomber bases constructed during Sir Hugh Trenchard's expansion of the RAF from 1923 onwards, retaining 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 up to 1939. The grass flying field still survives with its 1939 boundaries largely intact, bounded by bomb stores built in 1938-9 and airfield defences from the early stages of the Second World War. For much of the Second World War, RAF Bicester functioned as an Operational Training Unit, training British, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand air crews for service in Bomber Command.