ZE7 Lippitts Hill: Mess Block, Waltham Abbey, Essex

Summary

Mess Block, built 1939-40 by the War Office.

Description

The Mess Block, built 1939-40 by the War Office.

Materials: a timber-framed, single-storey range, with rusticated weatherboard cladding, standing on a brick plinth, with felted, shallow-pitched timber roofs and metal casement windows.

Plan: of rectangular plan.

Exterior: the double-pile, single-storey Mess Block is weatherboarded and has double-leaf timber, plank and batten doors at each end of the west facing elevation. Multi-paned metal casement windows with horizontal glazing bar patterns define each of the other bays on both the east and west elevations and on gable ends.

Interior: the Mess Block is accessed via the plank and batten doors at each end of the west elevation. Both sets of doors lead to corridors which at the southern end of the building has small offices, WCs and locker rooms off to the right and the large, open-plan canteen to the left. This corridor also leads to the large kitchen area which runs behind, but parallel to, the canteen. The northern corridor runs along the north gable leading to the canteen on the right and the kitchen to the rear. The interior throughout is utilitarian with boarded ceilings and walls but the base of trusses can be seen suggesting the original roof structure survives beneath. The carpentry is functional but consistent with the majority of the one-over-three timber panel doors surviving. Cast-iron sectional radiators and all the 1940s ‘crittal’ style window furniture also survive.

History

Until just before the Second World War the site of Lippitts Hill, currently a Police Training Camp, was a rural setting of open fields bordered by the Owl public house and Pipers Farm on the east side. The 1882 1:2,500 Ordnance Survey map shows a series of enclosed medieval fields on the site. By January 1940 a Heavy Anti-Aircraft battery known as ZE7 Lippitts Hill had been constructed to guard the eastern approaches of London. War Office documents record that the battery was operational in January 1940, and by January 1943 the battery was manned by American troops under the command of Major M F J Emanuel. In March 1944 Battery B, 184th Anti-Aircraft Artillery, equipped with Mark 1, 90mm guns, became the first American crew to fire in the defence of London.

In late 1944, the Americans moved to France and the site was converted by the British into a Prisoner of War camp. A reminder of this phase of use still exists on site today in the form of a concrete sculpture of a man carved by prisoner Rudi Weber in 1946 (NHLE 1390665). The Prisoner of War camp was closed in 1948. Sometime in 1951, or shortly afterwards, a Cold War Anti-Aircraft Operation Room (AAOR) was built on the site. It acted as a control centre for a number of anti-aircraft guns protecting the north of London. By 1956, with the advent of high flying jet bombers and evolving missile technology this role was obsolete and the system was abandoned.

In 1960, the site became a Metropolitan Police Training Area, a function retained until 2003. Following the murder of three police officers in West London in 1966, it was used as a centre for training police officers in the use of guns, although the construction of a new pistol firing range was not approved until 1973. From 1976 Lippitts Hill became a base for police helicopters, which were loaned from the Army and operated over London. However, in 1980, faced by a change in flight requirements, the Metropolitan Police purchased their own aircraft, and in November that year the Metropolitan Police Air Support Unit was officially launched and based at Lippitts Hill. Changes to the Metropolitan Police area in 2000 placed Lippitts Hill, and the surrounding area under Essex Police. The helicopter unit joined the National Police Air Service (NPAS) in 2014.

The subject of this case is The Mess Block built 1939-40 by the War Office as part of the supporting infrastructure for military personnel serving the ZE7 Lippitts Hill HAA gun emplacement. Other buildings in this group include The Spider Block (NHLE 1390667), Commander's Office (NHLE 1390666), Long Range and Adjoining Officers Accommodation (NHLE 1390668), Officers Accommodation (NHLE 1390669), Office and Chapel Building (NHLE 1390671) and a K6 Telephone Kiosk (NHLE 1390664) all of which are listed at Grade II. The Armoury is not currently listed but is being considered for listing as part of this case.

Reasons for Listing

The Mess Block, one of a group of buildings erected pre-1940 by the War Office as part of the supporting infrastructure for military personnel serving the ZE7 Lippitts Hill Heavy Anti-Aircraft (HAA) gun emplacement, is listed for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* As a near complete example of a Second World War mess block which survives close to its original form and within its original context, the best preserved anti-aircraft gun site in England;

Historic interest:

* As an integral component of one of Britain's premier HAA gun sites of the Second World War, a nationally important military site which retains evidence of continuity and change in the use of the site from the Second World War to the end of the Cold War;

* As a key component of the site which served the first American troops to fire in the defence of London during the Second World War;

Group value:

* For its strong group value with the other accommodation units, the HAA gun emplacement, the AAOR, the Concrete Sculpture of a Man and the Monument to US servicemen which collectively allow a thorough appreciation of the war time operation and chart the subsequent development of this nationally important military site.

External Links

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