Description

LAVERSTOCK

365/0/10010 PORTWAY
01-DEC-05 Old Sarum Airfield
(East side)
Old Sarum Airfield: TA Headquarters

GV II
Station headquarters. 1935 - 6. A Bulloch, architectural advisor to the Air Ministry's Directorate or Works and Buildings. Drawing No 135/35. Flemish bond brick, slate roof covering to pitched area, concrete structure with asphaltic finish to flat section.

PLAN: A main range in 2 storeys with flat roofs is in double-banded offices, with central entrance through a small lobby to large circulating hall, from which a central passageway is taken through on the main axis to a doorway at the rear. This range is flanked at either side by single-storey pavilions with hipped roofs, and across the rear a similar hipped unit, forming an asymmetrical 'H' in plan. The main open-well staircase is in the link building.

EXTERIOR: Small-paned timber sashes to all windows. The central 2-storey range is in 7 bays, with large upper lights, but smaller lower ones to flat segmental heads. A central pair of panelled doors to radial fanlight is set in responds with a moulded arch keystone, and is all original. To each side the pavilions, in the same plane as the 2-storey range, have 3 bays of near-square lights, with 3 on the returns and rear, but the left-hand unit has to the rear an open 3-arched loggia on paired square piers, with voussoir arches to a keystone, and rudimentary capitals and bases. The back of the main range has 2 lights at each level, and returns to the T-arm at the same height, with 3 lights to each level to the NE, but smaller lights and a door, to the stair lobby, on the SW. The transverse rear range, like the pavilions with a high parapet, has 3 lights each side of a pair of doors in arch and responds similar to the front: this was originally the operations room. It returns to 3 bays each end, and 2 on the inner returns. Original hopper-heads and downpipes remain to all elevations.

INTERIOR: plain, retains dog-leg stair and some original joinery.

HISTORY: This is a distinctive design of 1935 by the Air Ministry architect, A Bulloch. Detailing is restrained throughout, but massing, spacing and proportions are carefully considered, in the neo-Georgian style favoured at this period, and influenced by the impact of the Royal Fine Arts Commission, especially though the architect, Sir Edwin Lutyens.

This building makes a significant contribution to a key aviation site. See description of hangars for fuller history and account of Old Sarum airfield.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26670957

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

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