Two Barrage Balloon Workshops

PUCKLECHURCH

1096/0/10005 PUCKLECHURCH TRADING ESTATE 18-JUL-03 Two Barrage Balloon Workshops

II Two Second World War barrage balloon workshops. Circa 1938. Steel frame, clad in asbestos sheets [some of the cladding has been replaced] and timber boarding. Mansard shaped asbestos clad roof with gabled ends to main balloon sheds and lower corrugated asbestos roof with gabled ends to workshop. PLAN: Pair of barrage balloon workshops, rectangular on plan and each with a large balloon shed open to the roof and with a lower 2-storey workshop at one end. EXTERIOR: The large asbestos-clad balloon sheds have mansard-like roofs and large windows high in the walls on three sides. The lower workshops are clad in horizontal timber boards and have multi-pane steel-frame windows and dormers. INTERIOR: The balloon sheds are open to the roof, but lined in asbestos sheets. The lower workshops have exposed steel braced roof trusses and are partly floored. HISTORY: Built in about 1938 as Balloon Centre No.11 when eighteen barrage balloon depots were established around Britain, Pucklechurch covered the defence of Bristol, Filton and Avonmouth. The four adjacent balloon hangars to the south east have been altered and reduced in height and are not included in the List. These balloon repair workshops are the remaining two of originally four balloon workshops at the Pucklechurch depot. Barrage balloons were brought here for repairing when damaged, either in combat or if damaged when they had broken loose from their moorings. This pair of barrage balloon workshops is a rare surviving example of a type of military building that played an important role in the defence of Britain during the Second World War. SOURCE: Francis, P. : Military Airfield Architecture; 1996.