CONTEXT & BACKGROUND Historic England has been asked to assess the storage hangar (hangar 1) at Fairoaks Airport, Surrey for listing. The whole airport is the subject of pre-planning discussions relating to the redevelopment of the site as part of a proposed ‘garden village’. The application site is not situated within a conservation area and is not locally listed. Alongside the storage hangar application, three further listing applications have been made for the blister hangar (1445752), the control tower (1445118) and the maintenance hangar (1445749) at Fairoaks and these are considered separately.

HISTORY AND DETAILS Fairoaks was founded as a private airstrip in 1931, being commissioned by the Air Ministry in 1937 to meet the growing demand for training centres for new pilots. Construction of the airport buildings commenced in 1937, with the control tower, along with hangars 1 and 2; now the storage and maintenance hangars. The No.18 Elementary & Reserve Flying School was established at the airfield in October 1937 and oversaw the training of pilots during the war. In the early post-war years, the airfield was managed by Universal Flying Services, which operated a flying training school and provided aircraft maintenance services. The airfield was sold in 1967 and has been operated privately since then. The storage hangar is situated to the north-west of the runway, adjacent to the control tower. It has a steel frame comprised of a series of lateral, multi-piece cambered trusses with external metal sheet cladding and a corrugated sheet roof with roof lights. It is approximately 115m in length, with a span of around 25m. Internally, the structural trusses remain exposed and are unaltered. No original internal features or equipment of note has been specified in the application.

DISCUSSION In assessing this site for listing, the Principles for Selection (DCMS, March 2010) and the Listing Selection Guide for Military Structures (2011) are relevant. As the Listing Selection Guide for Military Structures outlines, Fairoaks was one of around 740 flying stations or aerodromes operating during the Second World War. Although many of these have since been lost or heavily adapted, the Selection Guide makes clear that there is a need for selectivity when assessing such sites and their related structures for listing. As the guide states, it is only examples with ‘strong intrinsic or associational importance, particularly those with key historical episodes of the Second World War, which have been recommended for protection’. Selection principles for military aviation sites include rarity; technical or structural interest; group value with related structures; and operational importance (such as direct involvement in an important campaign such as the Battle of Britain or the Battle of the Atlantic).

Fairoaks’ two hangars (along with the control tower) were built as part of the adaptation of the private airfield for use as a training facility for the Air Ministry from 1937. Such was the urgency to increase training capacity for new pilots in the run up to war that the new Fairoaks structures were built to standardised and economised specifications within a matter of months in order to be immediately operational. Whilst the storage hangar demonstrates a form of standardised hangar structure employed by the Air Ministry to quickly adapt existing sites for military purposes, it is of a standard type and is not considered to be technically innovative or particularly advanced in its construction or design. In structural terms, the hangar is simple, comprised of a series of lateral cambered trusses assembled from multiple pieces. The span of 25m is not exceptional for the period. The earliest hangars for aviation pre-date the First World War. Most listed examples are either of an early date or demonstrate some form of structural innovation. Important examples such as the Grade II listed arched hangar of 1929 at the former Heston Air Park in West London (NHLE: 1393114) was the first all concrete hangar in the country, whilst the airship hangars at Cardington in Bedfordshire (both listed Grade II*, NHLE: 1114165 and 1136810) of 1917 and 1927, achieved massive spans of over 50m at very early dates. By comparison, the storage hangar at Fairoaks is of a standard type for its date. Taken as a whole, Fairoaks Airport has some local interest in testifying to the role of the area in the war effort. However, there is no specific connection to any notable military operations or key developments in the history of aviation, which would elevate its historic interest.

Overall, it is considered that the storage hangar at Fairoaks Airport does not have sufficient special architectural and historic interest to meet the criteria for listing. Whilst the airfield and its associated structures have some local historical interest, this is not enough to justify statutory listing.

Judged against the Principles of Selection and the relevant criteria, the storage hangar (hangar 1) at Fairoaks Airport, Surrey is not recommended for listing for the following principal reasons:

* Lack of architectural interest: the hangar is of a standard form and structural type for its date, without any specific technical or design interest; * Lack of historic interest: there are no known associations of the site with notable military operations, nor any key developments in the history of aviation.

CONCLUSION It is concluded that the storage hangar at Fairoaks Airport does not meet the criteria for listing from a national perspective, but the wider site has some local interest as an Air Ministry commissioned airfield with original structures remaining from its use as a Second World War training site.