Building No 25 (Former Regimental Institute) Groves And Henderson Barracks

Former Regimental Institute, Groves and Henderson Barracks, RAF Halton

Built in 1920 to Air Ministry Directorate of Works drawings 337/20 and 369-371/20, this is a compact and complex two-storey building serving the Groves barracks group. It is constructed in red brickwork in stretcher bond to cavity walls with limestone ashlar dressings. The roof, which now carries concrete plain tiles replacing the original slate, is carried on timber trusses. The building occupies the north-west corner of the barracks complex, positioned behind the sergeant's mess (Building No 27).

The Plan consists of a long main front with a projecting central open pediment that steps back to deep wings, with a complex rear elevation containing service courtyards, a loft central kitchen, and various service and storage spaces. The building is distinguished by stepped hipped roofs. Entrances are provided to the staircase halls and end returns, and to the wings beyond. Originally, a small square clock tower with cupola stood on the ridge behind the pedimented centre, but this has been removed. Major rooms at each level include a dining room, lounge, reading and billiard rooms, with the central kitchen to the rear.

The front elevation spans seven bays, twice stepped back from the centre, with the outer single bays set to a lower eaves level. Windows are principally timber glazing-bar sashes in plain reveals, with ground floor lights set above transoms. Beneath the central pediment and in the staircase units on the returns, small-pane casements are set to stone surrounds with mullions and transoms. The large central window displays six lights to each floor arranged in a three-by-two grid, with a stone apron featuring a raised central panel between floors. Above this, set within the pediment, is a small oculus in brick voussoirs with flush stone keys to the cardinal points. Each side of centre, two bays contain sashes with overlights at both floor levels.

The returns feature a narrow sash above a pair of panelled, part-glazed doors in a painted pilaster surround beneath a flat canopy on brackets. Above the doors is a tripartite small-pane lunette set within a brick arch. This door detail repeats in doors beyond a projecting staircase unit, which has its own separately expressed hipped roof and displays a large three-by-three-light gridded casement window in stone surround with mullions and transoms, continued downward as an ashlar panel with a raised central unit. Beyond are three further sashes above a pair of doors with lunettes, joined by a painted panel to hood height. A deep wing extends further, with a single ground floor window to the front and two sashes at each level on the return. The window pattern continues to the rear in the wings, flanking a high central kitchen with roof lantern that is surrounded by small courtyards and service rooms. Roofs project to modest box eaves all round.

Internally, entrance halls are articulated by classical pilasters, each containing an elaborate imperial stair with openwork cast-iron newel. Original joinery includes panelled doors throughout.

The Groves and Henderson Institutes are near identical buildings, each serving eight adjacent barracks blocks and representing major elements in the comprehensive barracks group, reflecting the same design philosophy and detailing found in many other units on the site. The building remains little changed externally since its completion in 1922, excepting the loss of the turret and new roof coverings.

Historical Context

When the Royal Air Force was formed as the world's first independent air force in April 1918, General Sir Hugh Trenchard, its founding father and first Chief of Air Staff, concentrated upon developing its strategic role as an offensive bomber force. His primary considerations lay in laying the foundations for a technology-based service through the training of officers at Cranwell and technicians at Halton. Delays in constructing permanent buildings at Cranwell until the early 1930s mean that only the Groves and Henderson Barracks at Halton relate to this critical period of early RAF development.

Halton had been established as an army camp in September 1913 on part of a Rothschild estate, with tented accommodation replaced by wooden hutting for 12,000 men on three sites in early 1915. Plans to centralise technical training for the Royal Flying Corps, which had relied on instructional schools established at major towns and cities from 1915, were underway from June 1917. RFC personnel moved to take over the army camp in summer 1917, with £100,000 allocated for a large workshops building. The site was greatly expanded in 1918 by the purchase of the Rothschild mansion (listed Grade II) as the officers' mess and parts of the estate for £112,000, considerably below market value.

On his return as Chief of Air Staff in early 1919, Trenchard viewed the establishment of central training establishments as the fundamental building block of an independent technology-based service. Halton thus became home to the Aircraft Apprentice Scheme, in which boys of above-average educational attainment would receive three years of training, compared with the usual five years for civilian apprentices. The first arrivals came in 1922, moving into the Groves and Henderson barracks. Two reused seaplane hangars were erected on the flying field in 1924, backed by various tented Bessoneau hangars, with a substantial hospital added in 1927. Three further groups of barracks followed, the last begun in 1936, together with a school and additional technical buildings. The three sections of the base remain separated by public roads and woodland planting, which was part of the original design scheme.

The Apprentice Scheme was temporarily suspended from 1939 to 1947, with the final intake graduating in 1993.

The Groves and Henderson barracks, designed immediately after the First World War as a permanent base for the world's first independent air force, occupy an important place in early British military air power development. They were designed in the Domestic Revival style favoured by the War Office for army barracks from the 1870s and are externally complete except for the loss of their slate roofing. The consistency of materials and treatment produces a harmonious and homogeneous ensemble, complemented by the planted woodlands to the east and south. Although designed well before the self-conscious structures of the 1930s Expansion Period, when pronouncements from the Royal Fine Arts Commission influenced RAF architectural development, these buildings demonstrate that considerable care was taken to avoid utilitarian severity. This represents a significant departure from the generally temporary accommodation provided for the Royal Flying Corps and from army barracks planning as practised since the Cardwell reforms of the 1870s, establishing a template for the planning of barracks buildings on RAF bases.