15, Nursing Administration Block, East Fortune Hospital

This building dates from around 1916 and is a single-storey, six-bay former Barrack Master's office located at the entrance to the former Royal Naval Airship Station site. It features a projecting gabled porch positioned to the left of centre on the north-west elevation.

The structure is constructed with a concrete plinth incorporating an integral drainage channel and a brick base course. The main walls are predominantly white-painted corrugated iron with timber eaves course and bargeboards. The north-east end bay is of brick and may be a later addition. A vertically-boarded timber entrance door is positioned to the south return of the porch and to the right of centre on the north-west elevation, with a concrete step. Window openings to the north-west and south-west elevations are set close to the eaves.

Later additions include brick lean-tos to the end bays of the south-west elevation, a lean-to addition to the east, and a brick addition to the north. The windows are multi-pane metal-framed casements with top-hung hoppers. The pitched roof is white-painted corrugated iron, with tall brick wallhead stacks and cylindrical cans on the south-west elevation. The doors are boarded.

The building forms part of a group listing that includes the East Fortune Hospital Welfare Office, East Fortune Hospital Offices, East Fortune Hospital Stores, East Fortune Hospital Driver's Office, East Fortune Hospital Loading Bay, and East Fortune Hospital Recreation Hall.

This former Barrack Master's office is one of the few surviving original buildings from the significant First World War airship base and marks the starting location of the first East-West trans-Atlantic flight. East Fortune remains the most complete example of a purpose-built First World War airship base known to exist in the United Kingdom, and this building is a rare surviving example of corrugated iron military architecture from that period. The 1945 Air Ministry Record Site Plan identifies it as a Guard House; it later served as the nursing administration block when the site operated as a sanatorium.

Following the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, the Admiralty established a series of home defence airfields along the North Sea coastline to protect east coast shipping from German submarines and Zeppelins. Scotland played a particularly important role in coastal defence with a strategically concentrated network of sites along its east coast. In September 1915 the Director of Naval Air Services approved the establishment of an air station at East Fortune, whose location was ideal for coastal patrols of the east coast and the Firth of Forth. The Royal Naval Air Station was officially commissioned on 23 August 1916 when the first airship arrived. At least one of two coastal airsheds must have been completed by this point, along with necessary ancillary buildings including this office. During the winter of 1916-1917 a rigid airship shed was constructed, after which the station expanded with additional hangars and replacement of wooden barracks in brick. East Fortune was one of five airship stations in Scotland and, with Longside in Aberdeenshire, one of two principal Scottish stations designed to accommodate larger 'Coastal' and 'North Sea' types of non-rigid airships as well as rigid airships.

Following the First World War the airfield was used to launch the pioneering airship HMA R.34, which made the first East-West trans-Atlantic flight and the first return crossing by air. The airship station closed on 4 February 1920 and in 1922 the large airship sheds were dismantled. In 1921 a portion of the airship station was sold and operated as a sanatorium until 1997, although it was temporarily requisitioned during the Second World War and operated as part of an RAF and WAAF major training base. The First World War barracks were converted into hospital wards and additional buildings constructed in brick, including a large boiler house, laundry, canteen and meeting hall. The First World War barracks and interwar sanatorium buildings still exist on the site.

The site lies to the north of the disused East Fortune airfield, a scheduled monument. Since 1975 the airfield and associated structures have operated as the National Museum of Flight.