Building 23 (Parachute Store)

Building 23, known as the Parachute Store, is a Grade II listed building constructed between 1935 and 1936. It was designed by Bulloch, an architectural advisor to the Air Ministry's Directorate of Works and Buildings. The building is made of bath stone ashlar on brickwork and features a profiled tile roof.

This small, single-storey rectangular structure has a hipped roof and is entered through a projecting porch at the southwest end. The exterior includes steel casement windows with horizontal bars arranged in a 2:3:3:2-light configuration on the road-facing side, topped by a wide dormer with eight shallow lights. To the right of the windows is a plank door located in the small porch. The rear wall is plain but features a dormer similar to the front. The walls rise to a flush coped parapet all around.

Inside, the building has exposed steel trusses. It serves as a small but significant supporting structure, featuring high-level windows designed to allow suspended parachutes to dry. This building is part of a group of technical buildings at Hullavington Barracks, which are largely intact with original windows and fittings. They exemplify the successful blend of functional and aesthetic design from the early phase of the Royal Air Force's expansion after 1934. Buildings 20, 22, 23, 24, and 25 all face the avenue behind the hangar line, which runs along the main southeast-northwest axis of the site.

Hullavington opened on June 6, 1937, as a Flying Training Station and is recognized as a key site that reflects the improved architectural quality of air bases developed during the RAF's post-1934 expansion. Its location in the west of England, alongside other training and maintenance bases, led to its selection in 1938 as one of several Aircraft Storage Units for storing vital reserves intended for the operational front line. For more information about the site, refer to Buildings 59, 60, and 61, which house The Officers' Mess.