Airport Building, Comprising Control Tower, Administration Offices, Customs Hall, Restaurant, and Bars at Brighton City Airport (Shoreham Airport)

This is a complete airport terminal building opened in 1936 to designs by architect R. Stavers Hessell Tiltman. The structure is steel-framed, constructed partly in cement rendered block and partly in reinforced concrete. The building has undergone some later 20th-century alterations. The plan consists of a central block with flanking wings, the ends of which project southwards.

The south front, where passengers arrive by land, features a central pavilion with flanking wings and southward-projecting ends. Single-storey blocks sit in re-entrant angles in front of each wing. The central pavilion rises three storeys with a porch and full-width canopy supported on two columns at ground floor level, and a recessed entrance. Above this is a dropped narrow window surmounted by sun-ray moulding that rises through the centre in a shallow niche, flanked by two sets of small rectangular windows. The wings are two-storey with strip windows on the first floor of the inner wings and blank ends to the projections. A single-storey late 20th-century extension to the restaurant kitchen was added to the left inner wing.

The north elevation, facing the airfield, is symmetrical with a central, square projecting air traffic control tower of three storeys, surmounted by the original control room (now the manager's office) with full-width glazing on each side except to the south where there is a small extension, and an all-glass observation and air traffic control room above (this replaces the original smaller observation room). At the base of the tower, the canopied entrance opens to a rear viewing area. The curvilinear wings at either side are two storeys, each with an outer block at each end supporting an outer iron staircase. Strip windows in the flanking wings follow round the curved ends, with rectangular windows in the outer blocks.

Much of the original streamlined Moderne decoration survives in the interior, as confirmed by comparison with early photographs displayed in the building. The ground floor foyer and reception area, entered from the south, has original doors to the bar and restaurant on the left and a corridor to the right. Behind the entrance at the front is a double staircase to the upper floors. The reception area retains its original reception desk with original doors to the rear viewing area and a fluted cornice. A central well provides views to the balcony above, which has a streamlined parapet topped by a wooden hand rail, and a saucer dome in the centre of the ceiling above decorated with red aeroplanes. The corridor to the right dog-legs to the front of the building where a number of smaller rooms retain their original dimensions, door surrounds and some doors. A large room with original doors opening off the corridor to the rear of the building, now a conference room, was originally the assembly point for passengers as an arrivals and departure area. The restaurant to the left of the foyer was also for passengers' departures, although the kitchens had always been there, and there was originally a dumb waiter from the kitchen to a lounge on the first floor. The restaurant is in its original condition with bar, doors, windows, streamlined cornice and boxed girders in the ceiling. Original parquet flooring survives on the ground floor in the foyer and some also in the restaurant. The stairs to the first floor are polished stone with original tile work on the treads. A dropped narrow window with wrought ironwork decoration lights the first and second floor landings.

The stairs open to a rectangular gallery on the first floor with corridors to left and right. The gallery features the saucer dome in the centre with original rectangular lights to either side with geometric patterned spacer bars. A band of wave-moulded plaster work surrounds the gallery in its upper wall. The rooms opening off the corridor have some later partitioning, but retain some original wainscoting, a fireplace, and the remains of the moulding in the ceiling for the former South Coast Flying Club bar of 1936. The second floor consists of living accommodation with original door surrounds and restored doors. The third floor offices are only 15 years old, but behind them on the north is the original control room now used as the manager's office. Above is a late 1980s all-glass observation and air traffic control room.

The Shoreham Airport Terminal was built by James Bodie Ltd between 1934 and 1935. Stavers Tiltman (1888-1968) had offices in Brighton and was architect to Southern Aircraft Ltd. He was a successful airport designer in the 1930s, responsible for several major commercial airport designs in Britain, notably Belfast-Harbour Airport (1939) and the Leeds-Bradford Joint Municipal Airport at Yeadon (1939), although the original terminal buildings of the latter have now gone. He also had a design proposed for the Tudor House public house in Shoreham in the RIBA Library Drawings Collection, but the public house does not appear to have been built. The terminal building was built using cubic and curvilinear forms in the streamlined Moderne style that flourished in this period, and was acclaimed by his contemporaries when the South Eastern Society of Architects held their annual meeting at the airport in July 1936. The terminal building came into operation in 1936.

Shoreham was one of the centres of early British aviation (prominent other centres being Hendon and Brooklands), beginning about 1910, and is the only one which is still active as an aviation centre. It became properly established as an aerodrome in 1911 as Brighton (Shoreham) Aerodrome, and was a major venue for flying events such as the Circuit of Europe and the Round Britain races. During the First World War it was a Royal Flying Corps training base; after the war it was used by a flying club. In 1928 the aviation entrepreneur Sir Alan Cobham became involved in promoting Shoreham as an airport, and the three local civic authorities of Brighton, Hove and Worthing took up this idea. During the 1920s and 1930s international civil aviation was seen as promising major economic and prestigious advantages by forward-thinking civic authorities. In 1930 Cobham (who was also involved in the design of Liverpool Speke airport) was engaged by the local authorities to survey possible sites for airfields in the area, and he selected the original airfield at Shoreham for the new municipal airport. The local authorities bought the airfield, work commencing on the terminal building in 1934. The airport terminal building was built at a cost of £55,000, was completed by 1935 and officially opened in 1936. At that time the buildings on site were a main hangar, workshops and six private lock-up hangars. With the completion of the terminal building scheduled flying services were increased. Channel Air Ferries and Jersey Airways flew to destinations such as Bristol, Cardiff, Liverpool and Manchester, Jersey, Le Touquet and Deauville. Shoreham was visited by many aviation celebrities including Amy Johnson and Charles Lindbergh, who helped to maintain its prominence as a renowned centre of aviation.

In 1937 the Air Ministry decided that Shoreham should be used to train RAF Volunteer Reserves. At the outbreak of World War II much international air traffic was re-routed to Shoreham from Croydon, but by May 1940 these civil aviation duties were taken away and it was used by 225 Squadron for anti-invasion patrols. During the Battle of Britain Shoreham became an emergency landing ground for damaged aircraft, and for a short time was home to the Fighter Interception Unit from Tangmere and to 422 Special Hurricane flight, later to become 96 Fighter Squadron. Later in 1941 it housed 277 Air Sea Rescue Squadron, and Operation Jubilee (the raid on Dieppe, 1942) was planned in Shoreham's terminal building. In the preparation for the Normandy landings in 1944 the airfield was host to a newly formed French Fighter squadron.

In the 1950s and 1960s the airfield was used for making aviation components, latterly by Beagle Aircraft Ltd, which entered races and won the Schneider Trophy in 1986 and King's Cup Races of 1989 and 1994. In 1970 Beagle Aircraft went out of production and the airfield was handed back to the Council in 1971 to become an airport once again. A revived schedule of passenger services was continued until the late 1980s.

The terminal building is substantially intact, but a few changes have been made over the years, notably to the control tower. The profile of the control tower was altered by a small extension to the south of the original control room. Also the original observation room (a small glass-enclosed structure on the top of the control tower) was replaced in 1986-87 by an all-glass observation room following storm damage. There was also a programme of refurbishment in the early 1990s.

Due to its distinctive period style the terminal building has been used in a number of television and film dramas, including several Poirot episodes, a film version of Oh What a Lovely War, and in 2005 was transformed into Paris Le Bourget airport in a scene in The Da Vinci Code.