Station Headquarters and Operations Block at former RAF West Raynham, Helhoughton, Norfolk

Summary

Former RAF Station Headquarters and Operations Block, built between 1936 and 1939 to an original design by Archibald Bulloch, with modifications by JH Binge to include a metrological office, both architectural advisers to the Air Ministry's Directorate of Works and Buildings.

Description

MATERIALS: brick walls with reinforced concrete roof and floor slabs on steel beams.

PLAN: the Station HQ is a T-plan building, based around a spine corridor running the length of the main range from east to west and a shorter corridor behind which links to the Operations Block. This is a rectangular building with an open light well in the centre.
EXTERIOR: the Station HQ and Operations Block are both simple brick buildings with minimal decoration and a severe, functional appearance. Both have flat roofs behind plain parapets with the original steel-framed windows surviving throughout. The front (southern) range of the Station HQ is two storeys high and seven bays in length with taller windows on the first floor and is flanked by three bay single storey wings. A three-storey section is to the rear linking it to the Operations Block. The central entrance door is framed by a rendered surround with moulded edge. A transom light above original timber double doors has a decorative arched motif in metal.

The rear (north side) of the western single storey wing has an infilled three-bay logia with pairs of square brick columns with an indented brick course forming a capital. The two-storey section adjoining this has a door and bars on the ground floor window. The northern side of the eastern single storey wing has three windows, one comprised of glass blocks.

The three-storey block behind the southern range is of three bays, with three windows on all floors and central doorways on both east and west sides matching the main door to the front range, but with single leaf four-panel doors. On the west side one ground floor window opening is blocked; on the east side one is positioned off-centre.

The Operations Block is a tall single storey building. The south west side has two windows comprised of glass blocks while the south east side has conventional steel framed windows. The west side has a single window below a line of ventilation cowls and a ventilation grill made of small tiles set on edge. Similar ventilation cowls are found on the north side which has three windows, two in a central projecting bay. The east side of the Operations Block is windowless and has one blocked vent. Windows in this block have external metal clips, perhaps for shutters. Thick electrical earthing tapes protrude from the lower part of the western wall and a bell-shaped copper electrical point set in concrete mountings projects from the north wall, two more of which are also found on the top floor of the west side of the three-storey linking block.

INTERIOR: the front (southern) range of the Station HQ building has a wide entrance lobby with two pairs of glazed panels with decorative metal work matching the main door transom light. From this, corridors with a moulded detail at dado height and simple shaped arches run the length of the ground floor. The ground floor circulation spaces and some rooms have wood block flooring.

Along the ground floor corridors are a series of rooms with their original layout largely retained and original half-glazed and solid four-panel doors. Rooms along the south side of the west corridor have a series of internal windows between them for passing information between offices connected with the work of the Chief Accounting Officer. At the end of this corridor (in the single storey wing) is the former accounting clerks and records office with evidence of an internal wall having been removed to reveal the blocked logia, a space which was originally a waiting area to the pay office adjacent. This has a heavy timber door to the corridor, a steel reinforced one to the former loggia, bars on internal and external windows and a built-in safe.

On the eastern ground-floor corridor a room (possibly one of the Orderlies Rooms) next to the lobby has a built-in safe and hatch to the adjacent room which has high-level windows to the corridor. At the end of this corridor are a series of rooms for the Engineering Officer, Adjutant and Commanding Officer, one of which has bars on the inside of a glass-block window.

On the first floor of the southern range is the former Library accessed through half-glazed double doors which is flanked by Lecture Rooms. There is a blocked internal window to that on the western end of the floor which has been subdivided by later partitions, as has the eastern lecture room.

The ground floor of the Station HQ linking block contains WCs to either side of the corridor with original doors and glazed brick walls and the stairs at one end. Heavy steel doors seal the corridor where it joins the Operations Block. The stair rises through all three floors and is a cantilevered open well stair with simple, elegant newels and balustrades of flat section steel work with a timber handrail. On the first floor are WCs and interconnecting rooms for the Education Officer and his staff flanking the corridor from the stairs to the first floor of the main range. On the second floor a short corridor flanked by a bedroom for the duty officer and store rooms leads to the Meteorological General Office, a large room with double doors giving access onto the flat roof of the main part of the Station HQ from where views across the site could be had and conditions assessed.

The internal layout of the Operations Block is largely intact. It has a corridor around three sides of a lightwell which matches the Station HQ’s dado detail, wood block flooring and doors. There are bars to the internal windows and the lightwell walls are of white brick. On the western corridor is the Battery Charging Room which appears to have been joined after construction to what became the Teleprinter Room. These rooms contain electrical equipment set against the outside wall earthed to the copper tapes seen externally and the Teleprinter Room is lit by glass block windows. At the northern end of the west corridor is the Wireless Room which leads to The Traffic Office on the northern side of the lightwell and the original Meteorological Office which has a secondary exit via the projecting bay. There may have previously been an opening between these spaces which is now blocked. On the eastern corridor is the Signals Office with a heavy timber door and small grilled window beyond which a smaller room is lined with acoustic material. The Commanding Officer’s office is next door and the windowless Operations Room is at the north east corner of the building.

History

Construction of RAF West Raynham commenced in 1936, as part of the RAF expansion scheme, and officially opened in April 1939. As built, the site conformed to the typical layout of the 'Expansion Period' aerodrome, consisting of a roughly rectangular grass surfaced landing ground with runways in triangular plan, with the technical site, hangars and accommodation blocks grouped close together at the north-west corner; bomb stores were located to the south-east.

Towards the end of the Second World War, the base was identified as the location for the Central Fighter Establishment and for flying control the construction of a new Very Heavy Bomber (VHB) control tower was specified. Other work included a cannon test butt, additional officers’ single quarters, technical buildings and supporting infrastructure.

Post-war, RAF West Raynham became the RAF's premier fighter development station. The main roles of the Central Fighter Establishment included the development of fighter tactics and aircrew training. The station maintained both an operational and training role until its closure. From the mid-1960s it also accommodated Bloodhound Mk II surface to air guided missiles, located within its own compound on the East side of the airfield. In 1983, it became the main centre for training operators of Rapier, a short-range air defence missile system, and home to units responsible for this system.

The station closed in 1994, although the Ministry of Defence did not dispose of it until 2006. Most of the Bloodhound Missile site has been cleared. The VHB Control Tower was listed at Grade II in 2012 and later converted to a dwelling. Part of the site was converted to a business park and a solar farm was laid out across the flying field.

The Station Headquarters (HQ) building was constructed between 1936 and 1939 as part of the initial phase of development and was based on a 1934 design in a formal neo-Georgian style by A Bulloch but adapted by replacing the pitched roof with a flat Protected Roof Design of reinforced concrete slabs. It was also originally designed with a two storey Station HQ building, but at West Raynham a third storey, designed by Air Ministry architect JH Binge, was added for the Meteorological Officer.

The Station HQ was planned around central spine corridors which would allow safe exit from any bomb-damaged rooms around them. The western end of the HQ building had offices for the Chief Accounting Officer, clerks and a Sergeant Major with the end room for records and accounts clerks who would issue pay through three sliding shuttered windows to airmen waiting under an open logia. This was subsequently blocked up and a smaller lobby provided. The eastern wing of the HQ building had two orderly rooms and a waiting room with offices for the Engineer Officer and his clerk, the Adjutant and the Commanding Officer at the end. On the first floor was a library and two lecture rooms with a WC and office for the Education Officer and his clerk behind them. On the additional second floor was the Meteorological general office, a store, bedroom and communications room.

The Operations Block was built behind and attached to the Station HQ but separated from it by steel doors and the whole Block originally surrounded by a free-standing blast wall of two layers of brick filled with sand and gravel giving a total thickness of around 900mm. This wall was removed in the later C20. The Operations Block itself was constructed with solid external walls some 450mm thick and a roof of two layers of reinforced concrete slabs filled with sand and gravel. The building contained a battery room and wireless room (part of which accommodated a teleprinter facility in the later C20) in one area with the Traffic Office, secondary Meteorological Office and Operations Room in another with the Commanding Officer’s room and Signals Office adjacent.

Reasons for Listing

The former RAF Station Headquarters and Operations Block at West Raynham, built between 1936 and 1939 to an original design by Archibald Bulloch FRIBA, with a modification by JH Binge to include a roof-top metrological office, both architectural advisers to the Air Ministry's Directorate of Works and Buildings, are listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* it has a fine neo-Georgian composition with carefully judged proportions and good quality building materials that survives substantially intact;
* the original layout and fixtures and fittings of the principal rooms are well preserved and its initial use is still readable.

Historic interest:

* it is a well-preserved example of its type, encapsulating the aims of the RAFs post-1934 expansion period in the lead up to the Second World War;
* for its continual use during the entire period of the Second World War and Cold War.

Group value:

* for its contribution to the overall significance of RAF West Raynham as one of the best-preserved RAF expansion scheme bomber bases, retaining the layout and fabric relating to both 1930s military aviation and the development of Britain's strategic bomber force;
* for its strong functional and historic relationship with the surviving airfield buildings many of which are listed at Grade II.

External Links

Historic England Listing

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