The Watchtower Building

 

The Watchtower Building

Applying our conservation analysis and structural expertise in tandem, we secured from English Heritage its exceptionally unusual support for a scheme to dismantle this Grade II listed structure and re-erect it a few hundred metres away.

The 1915 building formed part of the Hendon London Aerodrome and sat at the centre of a complex that Claude Grahame White intended to become the country’s principal airport. It comprised an assembly hall, office, drawing office and watchtower and remained within the last section of the airfield to be redeveloped following the closure of the RAF base in 1967, where St George wished to build nearly 3,000 new homes.

We were tasked with recording and writing a conditions schedule of the remaining elements prior to its demolition. The building was then reconstructed 200m away within the RAF Museum grounds, adjacent to a previously relocated original hanger building. The reconstruction restored and reinstated many of the original components including the original steel frame to the rear, most internal and external joinery and fenestration and the external stone detailing. Moving the building to the RAF Museum enabled the structure to be reunited, following our engineering design, with another surviving part of the factory. Together, the relocated buildings form an appropriate setting for the Museum’s collection of early aircraft and as an exhibition of the history of early aviation in the UK and Hendon’s leading role in it.

Client: St. George
Architects: Scott Brownrigg (Formerly Acanthus Architects LW)