Combined Officers Mess And Offices, Yatesbury Airfield

The Combined Officers' Mess and Offices at Yatesbury Airfield was built in 1936 and designed by architect Cecil Jones. It features rendered brick construction with steel-framed windows and flat roofs, arranged in a square plan. The southeast elevation includes offices for the chief flying instructor, time-keeper, and pilots' changing rooms, while the southwest side has a billiards room and a mess/ante-room for instructors and officer pupils, facing a garden. The garden front is highlighted by a taller central block with small-paned windows set in four recessed semi-circular arches with fanlights and linking impost courses. A plat band connects the flanking ranges, which have projecting end blocks and flat arches over similar windows, along with a plain rendered surround to the right-hand doorway. The airfield elevation features a plat band linking four projecting canted bay windows arranged in pairs, flanking a central window. The northeast and northwest elevations have flat arches over windows, with the northwest side also having rendered surrounds for two door openings. Although the interior has lost much of its original detail, it retains half-glazed doors set in moulded wood architraves in the hallway that opens to the garden front.

Historically, this building was the architectural highlight of the civilian flying training school opened in 1936, operated by the Bristol Aeroplane Company under contract to the Air Ministry. During the 1930s, the expansion of the RAF involved contracting preliminary training to private firms. Flight magazine praised the complex in 1936 as "a model school whose pattern few will equal and none better," and its modern style makes it the most distinguished example associated with a purpose-built Elementary and Reserve Flight Training Station.