Building 31 (Officers' Mess And Quarters)

Officers' Mess with accommodation at Marne Barracks (former RAF Catterick), designed in 1935 by A Bulloch, architectural advisor to the Air Ministry's Directorate of Works and Buildings. Extended in 1939. The building is constructed in red brick in Flemish bond with a pantile roof on steel trusses.

The plan follows a broad 'H' shape with a symmetrical front. The central single-storey range is set back from two-storey bedroom wings. The central range is long and shallow, containing a central hall flanked by the main reception rooms—a long ante-room to the right and two rooms to the left, accessed by a long corridor at the rear. The main dining room lies at right angles to this range across the corridor, positioned centrally to the ante-room. To the left rear are the kitchen and services, with a small two-storey bedroom block. A transverse corridor runs through short links to the bedroom blocks, which are double-banked with central corridors.

Externally, all roofs are hipped with parapets to the reception range and dining room. All windows are timber sash with glazing-bars, fitted to flush boxes, with brick voussoirs and stone sills. The central range features a slightly stepped forward central section of three arched bays to brick piers, over set-back pairs of glazed doors with radial fanlights, all opening onto a one-step full-width stone landing. The parapet rises higher than the flanking sections and is composed of five bays with large 29-pane windows grouped 3+2, with two similar windows on the end returns. To the right, one window has a pair of doors inserted below the upper sash. Two plain square ridge stacks occupy the centre section.

Short low-level links, each with two pairs of glazed French doors, connect to the two-storey blocks. The short ends have three 12-pane windows above a central arched, part-glazed door flanked by 12-pane windows, and at the eaves, tall paired stacks linked at the top over an arched opening. The long returns comprise 12 bays with 12-pane windows to each level. Walls and gates enclose internal courtyards to the rear.

The interior retains original joinery including panelled doors throughout. The square entrance hall has pairs of glazed doors opening to the corridor on each side at the rear. The mess rooms are richly appointed with cornicing, bolection-moulded panelling and fireplaces. Floors are laid in polished wood strip. Dog-leg staircases feature turned balusters to a solid string and heavy square newels.

The design reflects the Air Ministry's post-1934 expansion policy, which had been instructed by government in 1931 to consult the Royal Fine Arts Commission regarding airbase design. The Commission's consultant architects and planners, including the outspoken critic of modernism Sir Reginald Blomfield and the distinguished country house architect Sir Edwin Lutyens, sought to soften the visual impact of new RAF bases on the landscape. This officers' mess is a fine composition typical of the period in its neo-Georgian style and clearly demonstrates the influence of the Royal Fine Arts Commission, particularly the guiding hand of Sir Edwin Lutyens in its careful grouping of openings and paired chimney stacks. The building was planned according to the principles of dispersal established by Sir Hugh Trenchard, the RAF's first Commander-in-Chief, in the early 1920s. This principle separated the central dining area and recreational facilities from the accommodation wings by lengths of corridors, with the aim of localising the effects of bomb damage.

Catterick Station opened in 1914 to train pilots and assist in the defence of north east England, though the land was not officially leased from Lord Yarborough until January 1917 and was purchased by the Air Ministry in 1924. A Flight of 76 Squadron, responsible for the defence of the Leeds and Sheffield area, was stationed here from late 1916 to November 1918. During the final stages of the First World War, Catterick became one of over 60 Training Depot Stations for training pilots in daylight bombing. It is the only Home Defence Station of the First World War period to have retained original fabric relating to its original flying field, notably the hangars of 1917, which retain their original steel frames built to an earlier standard design for the first generation of army hangars of 1913. The use of steel, commonly employed by the Admiralty for seaplane sheds, is unique for a Royal Flying Corps base. This makes Catterick one of only nine groups in Britain (seven in England, Montrose in Scotland and Shotwick in Wales) to have retained substantially complete suites of hangar buildings dating from the period up to 1919, a rarity in a European context.

Like Old Sarum airfield, another significant site near a major army training ground, Catterick's rebuilding in the inter-war period—under contracts first let in 1925-6—was firmly linked to its role as an Army Co-operation station. Married quarters and more permanent buildings on the technical site were constructed in the late 1920s. In 1935, under Scheme A of the post-1934 RAF expansion, the site was augmented by new C-type hangars, a control tower, this officers' mess and barrack blocks. By 1938, it had become a key fighter sector station in 13 Group. In readiness for this role, it was provided with a single runway, defensive system and fighter pens; some pillboxes, a Bofors gun pit and fighter pens survive. From September 1939, Catterick played a vital role in the defence of the north east and of convoys in the North Sea. During 11 Group's front-line role in the Battle of Britain, Catterick—which participated in the early stages of the battle—was used as a rest station for fighter squadrons returning from the south east. Catterick is the only fighter station in the north of England which retains fabric recommended for listing as a consequence of English Heritage's thematic survey of military aviation sites and structures.