More information : TQ 65 NE GIBSON DRIVE. Gibson Building. A Grade II Listed Building. Officers' mess, now council offices. 1939, based on a type design by A Bulloch, architectural advisor to the Air Ministry's Directorate of Works and Buildings. Stretcher-bond brick to cavity walling with hipped plain tile roofs and brick stacks.
PLAN: central entrance/recreation block with services and dining room to rear, flanking accommodation wings attached at right angles and extending to rear. EXTERIOR: Neo-Georgian style. The front elevation has 3-window fronts of 2-storey accommodation blocks flanking the single-storey central block of 5:3:5 bays, the 5- bay central porch broken forward and with semi-circular arched entries with similar
arches over half-glazed inner doors with fanlights; tall 12/16-pane sashes to flanking recreation rooms, their juncture with the hall marked by tall stacks. The 3-window fronts to the accommodation wings, which have 6/6-pane sashes and 13-window
outer elevations, each have a central stack with swept flanks set above a similar arched door with tile imposts. INTERIOR: central block retains original plasterwork, including moulded cornicing, and joinery, including half-glazed doors, to hall and flanking recreation rooms; latter have bolection-moulded surrounds to chimney pieces.Dining room to rear has cornicing to ceiling, which is subdivided into panels. (1)
The Gibson Building is a substantially complete example of a Neo-Georgian officers' mess, its careful prortions and detailing reflecting the impact of Royal Fine Arts Commission advice to the Air Ministry. (2)
The Gibson Building was named after Wing Commander Guy Gibson, the famous pilot who flew with 29 Squadron from West Malling. The building was built to design number 2292/34. In 1997 the building still bore traces of its wartime camouflage scheme, and also of the damage it sustained during World War Two. It is situated at approximately TQ 669 556. (3)
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