Buildings 3, 6 And 7 ('C' Type Hangars)

BUILDINGS 3, 6 AND 7 ('C' TYPE HANGARS)

Two aircraft storage sheds and one repair shed, built in 1935–6 at Hullavington Barracks. Designed by A Bulloch, architectural adviser to the Air Ministry's Directorate of Works and Buildings. The structures use Bath stone ashlar on concrete or block foundations, with steel stanchions and roof framing, and asbestos slate roofs.

The two storage hangars (Buildings 3 and 7) are identical Type 'C' sheds arranged in 12 bays. Each has a large open hangar space flanked by single-storey annexes along the side walls, containing crew rooms, locker rooms, armament storage, ground equipment rooms, offices and workshop accommodation. At each end are 6 full-height steel doors with paired full-width lights at the top, fitted to overhead sliding gear without gantries. The doors have been modified by the insertion of a central fixed panel and small opening. Above the doors is a deep apron clad in asbestos slate. The end bays have a parapet rising to the height of the apron, while the remaining 10 bays have a lower parapet above a continuous range of paired lights in 4 by 4 large panes, protected externally by later translucent corrugated sheeting. Bays 4, 6, 7 and 9 contain vertical ventilating louvres, with similar louvres in each of the tall lights to the end bays. The parapets conceal a series of hipped roofs. On the field side of each hangar is a low flat-roofed single-storey annex with 2 and 3-light steel casements with horizontal bars, grouped under lintel bands with central doorways. Building 3 has a small 4-bay unit on the opposite side, and Building 7 a 1-bay range.

The repair shed (Building 6) follows a similar overall format but is arranged in 8 bays, with 4 doors to each end fitted with paired lights at the top. These doors retain their original form without modification. The main lights along each long side have 6-pane vertical external clear screens beneath a continuous run of externally fixed spotlights. On the field side is a 6-bay annex with steel casements. The inner side contains a full-height 2-bay central 'transept' with a large end light above the doors. To its left is a low flat-roofed unit of the same depth in 4 bays, and to the right a deep projecting flat-roofed workshop with continuous louvred roof ventilator. A large square stack stands at the internal junction between the 'transept' and main shed.

The principal roof trusses of the 'C' sheds are formed from paired small channels connected by flat zig-zag bracing or flat plating, with main bracing of flats or angles and a complex of cross members at two levels carried to horizontal chords at mid-bay. Lateral support and bracing is provided in the outer wall planes above the window strip. The end bays have wind-bracing in the horizontal plane at door-head height. The roof slopes have been underlined with fibre-board insulation.

The Type 'C' was the standard hangar of the post-1934 RAF expansion scheme, with 146 sheds built on 72 sites. Each was designed with a span of 150 feet (45.7 metres) and a length of 300 feet (91.4 metres). Bulloch's designs displayed assured handling of the functional and aesthetic challenges posed by these large sheds, with Moderne influences particularly strong in the treatment of the end bays and massing of the workshop blocks to the rear of the repair hangar. By virtue of their degree of preservation and use of local limestone, these hangars represent the finest architectural assemblage of aircraft hangars of the inter-war period.

Hullavington opened on 6 June 1937 as a Flying Training Station and is the key station most strongly representative of the improved architectural quality characteristic of air bases developed under the post-1934 RAF expansion. In 1938 it was selected as one of a series of Aircraft Storage Units for vital reserves destined for operational front-line use. The hangars are positioned across the north-west edge of the main buildings group, centred on the main axis through the parade ground, water tower and control tower.