Buildings 28 And 343 (Motor Transport Buildings)

STANTON ST QUINTIN

1384/0/10021 HULLAVINGTON BARRACKS 01-DEC-05 Buildngs 28 and 343 (Motor Transport B uildings)

GV II Group of motor transport sheds. 1935 - 6. A Bulloch, architectural advisor to the Air Ministry's Directorate of Works and Buildings. Drawing No. 2782/34. Bath stone ashlar on brick, profiled tile roofs.

PLAN: Two buildings in parallel facing an open yard approx 23m wide and 30m long. To the left (NW) a central hipped garage block with lower gabled units in-line each side; on the opposite side of the yard a single gable unit with garages.

EXTERIOR: Windows steel framed casement with horizontal bars. The central unit to the left hand range is in 4 bays, with bull-nosed piers separating roller doors, above which are 6-pane over-lights and a high parapet. To the left the low wing has 3 casements and a door, and to the right a 6-bay open-fronted shed. To the rear the centre unit has 5 tall casements, and the wings have narrow single lights. The single unit opposite the long range is a 6-bay garage with roller doors to bull-nosed piers, but without over-lights.

INTERIOR: Not inspected, but ranges still in use.

HISTORY: A standardised layout for MT sheds on RAF bases; stone facing and designed in conformity with other major units on the base. This building is one of a group of technical buildings at this nationally important site that are both substantially complete -and which display the successful fusion of functional and aesthetic requirements that distinguished the early phase of the post-1934 expansion of the RAF.

Hullavington, which opened on June 6th 1937 as a Flying Training Station, is in every respect the key station most strongly representative of the improved architectural quality characteristic of the air bases developed under the post-1934 expansion of the RAF. Its position in the west of England with other training and maintenance bases also prompted its selection in 1938 as one of series of Aircraft Storage Units for the storage of vital reserves destined for the operational front-line. For further details on the site, see Buildings 59, 60 and 61 (The Officers' Mess).