Building 80 (Qm Stores)

ST PAUL MALMESBURY WITHOUT

1360/0/10019 HULLAVINGTON BARRACKS 01-DEC-05 Building 80 (QM Stores)

GV II Stores. 1938, by the Air Ministry's Directorate of Works and Buildings. Bath stone ashlar on brick, profiled tile roof covering.

PLAN: A large square block, all in one-storey. A hipped U-plan unit encloses, a lower flat-roofed area with a small central courtyard, and centred on the airfield side a tall garage or store, slightly projecting forward.

EXTERIOR: All windows steel casement with horizontal bars. A high flush-coped parapet is taken all round outer wings, which are hipped to front and rear. To the front (NW) each side are 3-light and flanking one-light windows, all to common lintel band. Central range has lintel bands over central doorway; flanking 3-light windows to each side of taller central block with lintel band over double doorway (partly infilled). SW and NE elevations each have seven 3-light windows under a common lintel-band, plus single-light windows to each end separated by downpipes with hopper-heads. The loading front (SE) has a central section with three wide openings to a loading platform, now blocked in brickwork, flanked each side by narrow single lights. These under a parapet raised above the remainder. To each side a large 3-light flanked by narrow single lights, all to a common lintel course.

INTERIOR: Steel trusses; original panelled, plank and sliding doors. The main repair sheds have steel roof trusses and plain concrete floor, one with inspection pit.

HISTORY: This stores building is one of a group of technical buildings at this nationally important site that are both substantially complete - with original windows and other fitments - and which display the successful fusion of functional and aesthetic requirements that distinguished the early phase of the post-1934 expansion of the RAF. It also comprises part of a remarkably complete technical group, established to the N of the main group on this base for the purpose of providing repair and administration facilities to the Aircraft Storage Unit. 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).