York Cottage

York Cottage is an officers' accommodation block built in 1913, designed by the War Office's Directorate of Fortifications and Works at Upavon Camp, Trenchard Lines. It is constructed of painted concrete blockwork with asbestos-cement and a diagonal slate roof.

The building is planned as a symmetrical single-storey T-shape with a broad front range containing bedrooms and a deep rear service wing. The central entrance lobby opens to a hall, with a transverse rear corridor serving two bedrooms on each side. The service wing contains a small kitchen.

The exterior features wooden glazing-bar sash windows with deep stooled stone sills. Paired small-pane glazed and panelled doors are set under a small flat canopy immediately below the eaves and accessed by a flight of five concrete steps. The front elevation displays two 12-pane sashes flanking a tripartite 4:8:4-pane sash. The left return has a single 12-pane sash, while the rear of the main range has a single 12-pane adjacent to the service wing, which has three sashes and a plain outer end. The right return contains a 6-pane sash and is partially obscured by an added flat-roofed plant room and fenced yard covering the wing, with one sash visible. The roofs are hipped with small box eaves, and small brick ridge stacks are positioned near each hipped end and to the rear wing.

The interior retains original joinery, including panelled doors and cupboards.

This is the least externally altered building of its type on the base and groups immediately adjacent to the Officers' Mess to its west. It exemplifies the provision for officers at this period, comprising small grouped pavilions rather than a larger block. Its plan form is identical to officers' chalets built in 1913 at Netheravon to the south.

Upavon was opened in June 1912, one month after the formation of the Royal Flying Corps, as the Central Flying School for the RFC under Captain Godfrey Paine RN. The temporary buildings of 1912 were replaced from 1913 as pupil numbers increased and improved accommodation was demanded. The site, along with nearby Larkhill and Netheravon, offered an ideal hill-top position for military flying close to army training areas on Salisbury Plain. Captain Hugh Trenchard, who would become the RAF's first Chief of Air Staff, received the first pilot's certificate issued at the end of the first training course and had risen to Assistant Commander at Upavon by January 1918.

Upavon remained the Central Flying School until 1924, when its central location within the Wessex group led to its replacement by Wittering in Lincolnshire. It briefly served as a Fleet Air Arm shore base in 1935, before being re-established with a major building programme. It became a Flying Training School from 1942 to 1945 and a transport base from 1946, with 38 Group organising the Berlin Airlift from here. The buildings of 1914 were all designed by the War Office's Directorate of Fortifications and Works, the most notable being the Officers' Mess and the airmen's barracks, officers' quarters and associated buildings planned after those at Netheravon.