Description

DUXFORD

1767/0/10032 SOUTH CAMP, IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM (FORME
01-DEC-05 R RAF DUXFORD)
Buildings 53, 55, 57, 58 and 292

GV II

Group of hutted training buildings, originally comprising photographic, gunnery training and workshops, and navigation huts. 1917 and 1918. By the War Office's Directorate of Fortifications and Works. Drawing Nos. 293/17 (57) and 1852/18 (58). Painted brickwork, corrugated asbestos-cement roofing on steel trusses.

PLAN: A group of five simple gabled huts; the former photographic hut (53) lies at the rear of the site, parallel with the A505, the others are at right angles to this, in 3 parallel rows.

EXTERIOR: All huts have the original steel casement windows, in 16 panes, four of these in the top half as a pivoted opening light. The long 6-bay huts have a series of external brick buttresses defining the bays and at the corners, with a plain plank door in the gable ends; the two smaller huts, originally the gunnery workshops are in 2 bays, without buttresses; hut 53 has a door in the S end, and 292 on the W side.

INTERIORS: Plain, with timber trusses.

HISTORY: Duxford is the finest and best-preserved example of a fighter base representative of the period up to 1945 in Britain, with a uniquely complete group of First World War technical buildings in addition to technical and domestic buildings typical of both inter-war Expansion Periods of the RAF. It also has important associations with the Battle of Britain and the American fighter support for the Eighth Air Force. See descriptions of the aircraft hangars for further historical details.

These modest-looking huts are historically important, since they remain from the original layout and designs of 1917; they have not been altered externally, and are representative of the basic designs in use during the early years of the Royal Flying Corps. The Training Depot Station at Duxford is the most complete WWI airfield group, with hangars and ancillary buildings, in Britain. The training of pilots for service overseas formed a critical aspect of Britain's air service in the First World War period, and the Training Depot Stations - initiated in 1917, and of which 63 were built by November 1918 - comprised the largest airfield construction programme of the First World War period. Each TDS comprised three flying units, each having a coupled general service shed, and one repair section hangar (the only surviving examples of the latter is at Old Sarum, Wiltshire) for the provision of serviceable engines and aircraft. Other specialist buildings, such as carpenters' shops, dope and engine repair shops, and technical and plane stores, characterised these sites.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26670961

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.

Recommended Books

• 
  Department for Communities Listed Historic Buildings of Northern Ireland: Information Guide for the 2nd Survey of Historic Buildings
• 
  Huddersfield in 50 Buildings
• 
  Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius (Penguin Art & Architecture)
• 
  England's Post-War Listed Buildings
• 
  [(Shropshire)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1958)
• 
  Kent: West and the Weald: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)