Description

1783/0/10006

MANBY,
MANBY BUSINESS PARK,
Guy Gibson Hall (former Station Headquarters)

GV II

Station headquarters. 1936-7. A Bulloch, architectural advisor to the Air Ministry's Directorate or Works and Buildings (drawing no. 190/36). Flemish bond brick, interlocking tile roof covering to parapetted hipped roofs, concrete structure with asphaltic finish to flat section.

PLAN: A main range in 2 storeys, 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 flat-roofed link building 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, with brick voussoir heads and concrete sills. Channelled rustication to door surrounds. The central 2-storey range is in 5 bays, with 15-pane sashes. 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, each have 4 bays of 15-pane sashes to front and rear; right end (N) has semi-circular with rusticated surround to panelled door with overlight. Tall 3-storey link block presents a 3-bay elevation to the S with 12-pane sashes flanking central bay with 8-pane sashes above panelled double doors with overlight set in rusticated semi-circular arched surround. The transverse rear range, like the pavilions with a high parapet, has returns to 2 bays each end and has a 7-bay W elevation with 15-pane sashes throughout. 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. Manby ranks with Hullavington in Wiltshire - another Scheme A station - as the most complete and architecturally unified of the post-1934 stations of the so-called Expansion Period of the RAF. For further details see description for Tedder Hall (qv).

Reasons for Listing

Military Aviation site

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26671842

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

• 
  Period Property Manual (New Ed)
• 
  Sussex: West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Listed Buildings: The Law and Practice of Historic Buildings, Ancient Monuments and Conservation Areas
• 
  Devon (Pevsner Buildings of England)
• 
  Building Small Projects (New Best of Fine Woodworking)
• 
  Hampshire: Winchester and the North (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)