Building 4 (Control Tower)

HULLAVINGTON

1359/0/10047 HULLAVINGTON BARRACKS 01-DEC-05 Building 4 (Control Tower)

II Control tower including Chief Flying Instructor's block. 1935-6. A Bulloch, architectural advisor to the Air Ministry's Directorate of Works and Buildings. Drawing No 1829/36. Bath stone ashlar on block, some rendering, concrete floors and roof, asphalt finish.

PLAN: A symmetrical two-storey, but with central tower containing observation room taken up on airfield side. Oblong building with centre recessed to tower unit; ground floor has watch office and toilets, first floor offices for chief flying instructor, officer commanding and clerks, plus rest room. Roof decks accessible by external fixed steel ladders.

EXTERIOR: Windows are all steel casement with horizontal bars, wrapped round the corners at both floors to the front. On the airfield side the centre has a 3-light at two levels, with a 2-light at the top level, flanked by single lights returned at the corners. To each side on the lower floors are continuous 6-lights in single lights. The tower detail repeats at the back, and there is a small light in each side; above these windows is a continuous lintel band, and a very high parapet to flush coping, with octagonal clock faces to three sides. The main return to the right has 2 doors and various small lights, and the back has various 2-light casements and central door. The ground floor has a continuous deep projecting band above windows, and the upper level, which is rendered, although in common detail, seems to have been added.

INTERIOR: original doors set in plain surrounds; straight-flight stair.

HISTORY: This is an exceptionally well-preserved example of a standard type of control tower used on training bases. This 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. The building is located on the main NW/SE axis to the technical and domestic buildings, passing through the parade ground and principal water tower.

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).