Building 30 (Works Services Building And Water Tower)

Hullavington Barracks, Stanton St Quintin

A general services building with main station water tower, designed in 1935–6 by A Bulloch, architectural advisor to the Air Ministry's Directorate of Works and Buildings (Drawing No. 1034/35). The structure is constructed in Bath stone ashlar on brick walls, with concrete roofs and some tower structure.

The building forms a complex group of mainly low single-storey structures arranged in a rectangular layout around internal courtyards, dominated by a tall water tower. The road frontage features steel casement windows with horizontal bars in 2:3:3:2-light configurations, above which sits a wide dormer with 8 shallow lights. A plank door in a small porch projects to the right. The rear wall is plain, with an identical dormer above. Walls rise to a flush coped parapet all round.

The encircling buildings contain workshops, stores and garages. The water tower rises sheer on a rectangular plan to a slightly inset parapet. The short sides feature a single slot and the long sides a triple slot, each rising from a projecting sill to plain arched heads, with 3 slightly recessed horizontal strengthening bands. On the front (south-east), the slot rises from a square cantilevered balcony above a deep-set double plank door set within an arch of two orders, with responds and keystone. The left-hand side of the tower has a wide double doorway beneath a deep over-light, flanked by tall single lights. To the left of the tower, a low link wall leads to an opening that continues as a higher plain wall running the full length of the return and back, with 2 small vertical lights. The rear features a variety of small units including a pair of garages and two openings into courtyards; a taller unit with 3 metal flues or vents is attached to the tower within the courtyard.

To the right of the tower, units have flat roofs behind high parapets with steel casements set to continuous lintel courses. The front comprises a formal unit with a central door flanked by 2 windows on each side; the return includes a set-back workshop with 3 very wide 3-light clerestory windows. Detailing appears generally original, with steel casements throughout featuring horizontal bars and continuous lintel courses.

The interior contains a steel stair to the water tower.

Though apparently simple in conception, this design demonstrates great sensitivity and clear Art Deco influences. It is a prominent structure dominating the entire base by its size and its crucial location on the main axis through the whole establishment, centred on the main gates and passing through the centre of the parade ground before terminating at the control tower.

Hullavington opened on 6 June 1937 as a Flying Training Station and represents the improved architectural quality characteristic 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 a series of Aircraft Storage Units for storing vital reserves intended for operational front-line service.