Building 370 with 330 (Officer's Mess), RAF Henlow, Lower Stondon, Central Bedfordshire

Description

HENLOW

346/0/10012 Building 370 with 330 (Officer's Mess)
01-DEC-05 , RAF Henlow

GV II
Officers' Mess. 1933, by the Air Ministry's Directorate of Works and Buildings. Red facing brick in Flemish bond, Portland stone dressings, slate roofs.

PLAN: A characteristic symmetrical layout, with 2-storey central block containing public rooms and mess, with transverse axial main mess, and kitchens with services to the rear. This is linked to 2-storey ranges, set back from the main block, and on each side with long returned arms brought forward to enclose a broad entrance courtyard. To the right (north-east) is a later wing (not included). The entrance lobby and hall to the main block gives to bar and lounge, writing room and similar public spaces, with the large dining room set centrally but transversely to the rear. The bedroom wings are double-banked, with a central entrance facing the courtyard, and access through the link blocks. Roofs all low-pitched hipped.

EXTERIOR: Windows are generally glazing-bar sashes, except for the centre block, set to rubbed voussoirs in a light brick than the walling, and to stooled stone sills. The centre block is in 9 bays, with replacement plain sash; the centre unit is stepped forward, under a closed pediment with a small bulls-eye light, above 3 close-set windows. A pair of polished hardwood panelled doors with plain overlight is set back between plain Roman Doric piers to a plain entablature with cornice and blocking, all this in stone, but on brick antae. There is a small window on each return to this pedimented section. To each side at the ground floor the central bay has a pair of glazed French doors with louvred shutters. The links each side have a lower eaves and roof-line, and are in 6 bays, with 16-pane sashes. The bedroom wings have hipped roofs; towards the courtyard they are in 9 bays; the centre bay is brought forward, and taken above eaves-line to a flat, flush stone-coped parapet, above a stone-dressed central feature, with a 16-pane sash in 'Gibbsian' surround and to a closed pediment, above a pair of panelled doors in wide pilaster surround with frieze and cornice. To each side are 3 bays with 16-pane, and outer end bays 12-pane sash. The right wing has 4 brick stacks on the inner roof slope, and the left wing, two. The roof of the right wing has been extended by one or two bays to the rear. The outer faces to the wings have some larger sashes, and, towards the rear, smaller lights to service rooms. The outer ends of the wings are emphasised with a central brought-forward section in brickwork, but with window and door in a stone surround; the 16-pane sash is in a 'Gibbsian' surround (but without pediment), above panelled door in wide pilasters under plain frieze and cornice. The brickwork is swept in at the haunches above the eaves-line and carried up high to a simple capping. To each sude on each floor is a 16-pane sash. The brick quoins to these ends and to the centre block are 'rusticated', with 3 courses brought forward to one recessed. A small box eaves is carried all round, on a cyma mould to the centre.

INTERIOR: Some polished oak panelling in the entrance circulation area; fine dog-leg staircase with turned balusters to solid string and square newels to simple finials, all in polished oak. Lounge has brick fire surround, polished oak dado panelling and doors, picture rail and ceiling cornice. The dining room has a flat segmental plaster panelled ceiling above a continuous horizontal moulded architrave, panelled doors in moulded architraves, wall pilasters, and high-level windows. Above the doors to the servery is a bowed balcony with Art Deco metal balustrade, on 4 cantilevered consoles. Bedroom wings were not inspected, but a high level of detailing was maintained throughout the building.

HISTORY: Dated 1933, this officers' mess illustrates through its handling and detail the impact of consultation with the Royal Fine Arts Commission on military airfield architecture. It is the most distinguished of a well-planned and handled series of buildings built on the domestic site at RAF Henlow in the 1932-4 period, with gauged detail to sand-faced external brickwork and high-quality internal treatment. It is the best example of the more refined airbase architecture of this period after the messes at Lee-on-Solent and Biggin Hill, and the mess and offices at Cranwell, Lincolnshire.

It is also one of the principal buildings on this historically important site, being the most impressive of a well-handled group of administrative and domestic buildings on what by the Second World War had become one of the RAF's major repair bases. The domestic site, which was subjected to an extensive rebuilding programme concentrated in the first half of the 1930s, is situated across the A6001 to the south of the technical group. This has retained an extensive group of married quarters, executed in the Garden City tradition, and barracks and office buildings dated 1933-5 which display unique architectural treatment for a military air base.

RAF Henlow was established in 1917 as the Eastern Command Repair Depot, raised to Group status in 1965 and still in RAF hands. The War Office had issued instructions for the construction of repair depots for each RFC Command, further to heightened awareness of the need to train more men in the rapid repair of aircraft and aero engines in order to sustain the war effort. Construction at Henlow - conveniently served by the Midland Railway - was begun in 1917, and some of the more substantial structures including the hangars date from this time; the last of the huts dating from this period were demolished in the 1970s. The first service personnel arrived (from Farnborough) in May 1918, and a limited output of Bristol fighters and Haviland aircraft was achieved by the Armistice. An extra area was added in early 1920, and in March of that year Henlow became the Inland Area Aircraft Depot; it was thus one of a very small number of airfields retained for use after November 1918, in its role as the RAF's flight test and maintenance centre forming a vital element within Sir Hugh Trenchard's newly-independent air force. By 1924, when it was selected as the permanent home of the School of Aeronautical Engineering, Henlow was producing 35 engines and 15 aircraft each month. In its role as a training base for skilled engineers and equipping operational stations with the latest aircraft it became, with Cranwell, Halton and Uxbridge, one of the RAF's largest bases, accommodating some 7000 of various nationalities in 1940. Basic engineering theory and management were taught at the Officers' Engineering School (formerly at Farnborough), one of the 1932 pupils being Frank Whittle. The Aircraft Riggers' School was brought in after 1935, and during the Second World War it performed a vital function as one of the RAF's largest Maintenance Units, overhauling, repairing and modifying a wide range of fighters and bombers, from Spitfires and Typhoons to Lancasters. A significant period was during the Battle of Britain in 1940: Hurricanes manufactured in Canada were crated in, assembled at Henlow and flown onto front-line bases. At one stage in 1941, in Operation Quickforce, about 100 Henlow fitters were trained for the assembly of Hurricanes on carriers en route for Malta, to which the completed planes were flown off deck. The Control Tower was at this time manufactured from packing case material, and still remains. Parachute training, including SOE officers, was another key function of the base. In 1947 the School of Aeronautical Engineering became the RAF Technical College, moving to Cranwell in 1965.

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