Building 68 (Watch Office) is a Grade II listed building in the North Yorkshire local planning authority area, England. First listed on 1 December 2005. Watch office.
Building 68 (Watch Office)
- WRENN ID
- gaunt-lantern-elder
- Grade
- II
- Local Planning Authority
- North Yorkshire
- Constituency
- Richmond and Northallerton MP: Rishi Sunak (Con)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 1 December 2005
- Type
- Watch office
- Address
- Building 68 (Watch Office), Catterick
- OS grid reference
- SE 243 971
- Coordinates
- 54.36901, -1.62711
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
The Watch Office, known as Building 68, was constructed in 1927 by the Air Ministry's Directorate of Buildings and Works. It is built of stretcher bond brick and features a gabled slate roof. The building is single storey, with a gabled south front that includes a bay window with steel casements for the duty pilot's office. The east elevation has a soldier arch over a central half-glazed door, which provides access to the duty pilot's room to the south and a rest room to the north. The interior is plain.
This building is a rare surviving example of a pre-1934 watch office, an early type of control tower where pilots would report. Its historical significance is enhanced by its associations with the nearby later 'tower' design (Building 54) to the east. The evolution of radio communication and the need to organize the airfield for take-off, landing, and taxiing led to the development of control towers, transitioning from simple watch offices to more complex designs by 1934, which integrated traffic control and weather monitoring.
Local climate
Building 68 (Watch Office) receives an average of 810 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 50% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 77% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 46 freeze-thaw cycles a year, more than 87% of listed buildings. Of these, 26 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
More on this building
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- No EPC on record for this property
- No sale records on file
- No related consent applications matched
- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
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