Officers' Mess at the former RAF Coltishall, Buxton with Lammas, Norfolk

Summary

Former RAF Officers’ Mess built 1939-40 to the designs of A Bulloch.

Description

Former RAF Officers’ Mess built 1939-1940 to the designs of A Bulloch.

MATERIALS: yellow brick laid in Flemish bond, bearing the remnants of camouflage paint, and a pantile roof covering.

PLAN: the building consists of a principal south-facing range with two rear wings at right angles, the eastern one being longer, which contains the reception rooms, kitchens and smaller rooms devoted to the running of the mess. This is linked via short corridors to the flanking L-shaped accommodation blocks. Behind, to the north, are the mess garages built in 1939.

EXTERIOR: the building is in a restrained neo-Georgian style and has hipped roofs with bonnet tiles at the hips. The tall one-storey principal range has a long frontage of thirteen bays. The central three bays slightly project to form a triple arched loggia in front of the recessed entrance which extends just above the eaves. The arches have square columns, two rows of brick headers around the arch rings and semi-circular fanlights with radial glazing bars. The double-leaf door in the central arch is a replacement, whilst the flanking arches contain multi-pane doors with wooden glazing bars. Two tall brick chimney stacks rise from the roof ridge in line with either end of the porch. The five bays either side are lit by tall twelve-over-twelve pane sash windows with wooden glazing bars. The return walls are lit by two windows in the same style as those already described.

The principal range is attached to the two-storey flanking wings by short single-storey corridors. The main (south) elevation of the wings is five window bays wide with each bay lit on both floors by two-light, top-opening uPVC windows. The ground-floor windows have gauged brick arches. The return walls on the inner sides are six bays wide, and above the second bay a large chimney stack rises from the verge which has two shafts joined to create an arch. The remaining elevations that form the long north stem of the L-shape are in a similar style.

The long, single-storey east wing (containing the dining room) that projects southwards from the main range is eleven window bays wide, and is lit by the same timber sash windows as on the principal range. The end five bays were added in 1953. The first of the new bays contains a two-leaf glazed door with timber glazing bars and a twelve-pane overlight; and between the third and fourth bays a flat-roofed brick porch has been added. The rear elevations, including that of the shorter west wing, are subsidiary. Some original timber sash windows survive but others have been replaced with top-opening uPVC windows. The mess staff accommodation block, which occupied the central rear projection, has two storeys under a hipped roof and is lit by original six-over-six pane timber sashes. The projecting central bay has a hipped roof with sprocketed eaves and an original door with glazed upper panels under a semi-circular brick arch. The single-storey brick building under a hipped roof adjoining the west side of the mess staff accommodation block was added in the late C20 and is not included in the listing.

INTERIOR: the loggia on the central range opens into a large hall joined at either end by a longitudinal corridor. The hall has very shallow semi-circular recesses on the walls to the right and left, and three recesses with semi-circular fanlights on the rear wall. The hall is flanked by a number of function rooms which are in a restrained Georgian style with high ceilings. They retain multi-pane glazed doors or veneered doors in moulded wooden doorframes, dado rails, plain skirting and moulded wooden cornices. The two largest rooms have wide bolection moulded stone fireplaces with a wooden surround, stone-coloured tiled insets and grate, and a stone fender. In one room the fireplace is flanked by seated alcoves. One of the smaller function rooms has a stone fireplace in a more flamboyant Tudoresque style with a depressed arch surround and Tudor roses carved in the spandrels. The long dining room, at right angles to the main range, has a barrel-shaped ceiling. The main range also contains an air-raid shelter (with an escape tunnel) which was later converted into a bar decorated with military artwork created in 1970-71 by a number of artists. The murals depict playing cards and related imagery, including a pilot, a helmet and a life-size Queen of Hearts. Parallel to the main range are extensive service rooms including a wine cellar, a valuables store with steel door, and a series of kitchens with modern fittings.

In the accommodation wings a central corridor gives access to the bedrooms, bathrooms, and box rooms. There are two types of rooms: bed-sitting rooms for junior officers, and bedrooms with an adjoining sitting room for senior officers. Not all the rooms were inspected (2017) but the majority of the doors and interior detail is of recent date, and most, if not all, of the fireplaces have been removed. There are two staircases: one for the officers which is a dogleg stair with a closed string, square newel post and turned balusters supporting a moulded handrail; and a much plainer one for servants with metal stick balusters. The west wing contains a bar on the ground floor with military artwork created in 1986 which features aircraft and squadron crests from the main squadrons stationed at Coltishall.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: on the north side of the Officers’ Mess is a long range of sixteen contemporary garages constructed of yellow brick with a tile-clad pitched roof and tile-creased kneelers. The garage doors do not appear to be original, and are of less interest, therefore.

History

One of the greatest changes in warfare during the C20 was the growth of military aviation. At the outbreak of the First World War there were just a handful of military airfields but by the end of the war, when the Royal Flying Corps and Royal Naval Air Service were combined to form the Royal Air Force, the new service occupied 301 airfields, including airship and fighter stations, and training depots. After the war all but 30 were closed and the number of airfields did not substantially increase until the early 1930s. During the 1920s and 1930s under the Chief of the Air Staff, Major-General Sir Hugh Trenchard, new permanent airfields were established to house the deterrent bomber forces and defensive fighters. The architect A Bulloch, FRIBA was seconded from the Ministry of Works to the Air Ministry as its chief architectural adviser of the new Expansion Period of airfield construction that took place between 1934 and 1939. There new airfields were built to high design principles with standardised technical and domestic areas. Contemporary amenity societies were concerned at the intrusion of these large developments into the countryside and one consequence was the construction of the larger domestic buildings in neo-Georgian style. Many also have tree-lined roads and widely spaced buildings to guard against bombing which gave them a campus-like quality.

The site at the former RAF Coltishall was chosen in 1938 as a strategically suitable location for an aerodrome as preparations were made for imminent war in Europe, and construction began in February the following year. The base contains the structures associated with an Expansion Period station which include C-type hangars, officers’ and sergeants’ messes, water tower and control tower, with domestic and technical buildings grouped together to the north-west of the runways. The central mess complex is always south-facing, with the squash court and garages generally located at the rear. The Officers’ Mess at Coltishall is the type ‘C’ version (protected roof design), the largest of three versions that could accommodate up to 55 officers. RAF Coltishall was initially conceived as a bomber station but in May 1940 work began to convert the base for use as a fighter station, with squadrons playing an important role in defending shipping in the North Sea. In the course of the war its operations varied, its plan adapting in response to the threat of attack, including the construction of dispersed fighter pens, only one of which survives. During the Battle of Britain it was associated with many of the RAF’s most famous fighter pilots including Max Aitken, Douglas Bader, John ‘Cats Eyes’ Cunningham, ‘Johnnie’ Johnson, Adolph ‘Sailor’ Mallan, and Bob Stanford-Tuck. Between 1940 and 1945 the base was home to more than 80 squadrons, and for a short time between 1945 and 1946 it was handed over to 133 Wing of the Free Polish Air Force.

In the early years of the Cold War RAF Coltishall was ideally placed to defend the increasing numbers of US Air Force bases in East Anglia, its squadrons focussed in resisting a possible pre-emptive Soviet strike. The base was later designated as a dispersal station for Britain’s V-Force and further modified to reflect its changing role, with additions made to the control tower and to domestic accommodation, extended to cater for the growing number of personnel. Four ready-for-use missile stores were also constructed. In 1959 the Lightning arrived at the station, a technologically advanced fighter plane that characterised Coltishall until the arrival of the Jaguar in 1974, when a number of new buildings were constructed in anticipation of their arrival. Jaguars were deployed during the first Gulf War and played a significant role in subsequent conflicts in the late C20. In 2006 RAF Coltishall closed as an operational base, and in 2010 the site was designated a conservation area.

The Officers’ Mess has been subject to some alterations. The dining room was extended at its northern end in 1953 in the same architectural style, and a new billiard room (now demolished) was built in the space previously occupied by outbuildings between the western quarters block and the kitchen block. A staff dining room, rest room and dry goods store was also built in the space previously occupied by the western kitchen yard. Both of these additions were built in 24ft span Uni-Seco hutting. In 1986 the Uni-Seco hut used as a staff rest room was demolished and replaced with a brick-built version. A new three-storey accommodation block was built in 1977 to the west on the site of a cultivated garden. Neither of these two additions are included in the listing.

Reasons for Listing

The former RAF Officers’ Mess, built 1939-1940, is 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 creating an architectural character that imparts authority and confidence;
* Interior: the internal treatment displays the spatial quality and understated refinement typical of the neo-Georgian idiom. Its significance is further increased by the examples of military art adorning two of the rooms;
* Degree of survival: the layout, fixtures and fittings of the reception rooms in the central range survive with a high degree of intactness, and overall the external composition and configuration remains close to its original form;
* Historic interest: it is a well preserved example of its type that encapsulates the aims of the post-1934 Expansion Period in the lead up to the Second World War. Its interest is enhanced by its association with many of the RAF’s most famous fighter pilots including Max Aitken, Douglas Bader, John ‘Cats Eyes’ Cunningham, ‘Johnnie’ Johnson, Adolph ‘Sailor’ Mallan, and Bob Stanford-Tuck, as well as its strategic importance during the Cold War; * Context: it retains its immediate contemporary setting, character and relationship to other buildings which provide an important and well-preserved context;
* Group value: it has strong group value with the scheduled Second World War fighter pen, Cold War blast walls and associated remains.

External Links

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