More information : The control tower was recommended for potential Listed Building Status in May 2003. (1)
FORMER RAF WEST MALLING. 16-APR-04. The Control Tower is a Grade II Listed Building. 1939-40, to 1939 Watch Office with Meteorological Section design by Air Ministry's Directorate of Works. Drawing no. 5845/39. Painted brickwork walls,
reinforced concrete floors and roof, with asphalt finish. PLAN: a near-square plan on three floors with wide glazed balconies facing the flying field. The ground floor has the main watch office and pilots' room, forecast and teleprinters, and WCs; at first floor is the main control room backed by the meteorological and signals offices; the rear staircase gives access also to the
glazed observation room at second floor level. EXTERIOR: the original steel casements with horizontal glazing bars have been
retained almost throughout, including those to the long observation frontages. At ground floor the front has three large 4-light windows separated by brick piers, under a concrete balcony cantilevered out to semi-circular ends, and with a 'nautical' style steel balustrade in four horizontal bars and handrail to simple
uprights; at this level is a continuous multi-light window returned to quadrants at each end, above a low breast wall, and with a deep parapet wall taken up as a balustrade to the top deck, which has a further range of full-width glazing to a set-
back observation room. The return walls each have a series of tall casements, linked at the upper level by a 'frieze band' under the cantilevered flat slab with the nautical balustrade continued to the rear to the stair tower. The rear faÎade has a single light each side of the projecting stair tower, with a small bulls-eye above a
deep stair light, and small lights on the return. Later alterations comprise timber-framed and glazed observation room, and extension over rear doorway. The building is flanked at each side by two-bay and three-bay fire tender and flare stores. INTERIOR: original doors and joinery; solid concrete staircase.HISTORY: This is the best example of this type of control tower after Swanton Morley. It is the most sophisticated Air Ministry design of the inter-war period both in terms of its planning, with a meteorological section incorporated into the design behind the control room. Its distinctly Art Deco treatment strongly recalls the Bauhaus tradition from which this style was evolved. (2)
For a further descritption of this type of control tower, with elevation and plan drawings, see Paul Francis' work on control towers. (3) |