RAF Oakington Volume 2 - The Airfield Research Group

1.1 Methodology
1. METHODOLOGY AND SITE OVERVIEW
This gazetteer is a stand-alone document that accompanies the Oakington History report. It
covers all extant structures and these have been placed within six chapters, depending on
building type and location.
The building descriptions in this report conform to English Heritage’s Level 2 / 3 surveys as
described in Understanding Historic Buildings – A Guide to Good Recording Practice (2006).
The gazetteer is based on an earlier one compiled in 2004 but has been enhanced, due to
more information becoming available and as the result of a subsequent series of field work
exercises which were carried out between 21 February and 10 March 2011. It provides a record
of structures at Oakington and is not a structural or condition survey. A DVD of images taken
during both surveys and pdf files of building plans is included in support of this report.
All buildings within the 1999 MOD boundary which were covered in the original report are
included here regardless of whether they have been demolished in the intervening period
between 2004 and 2011. This report, like the previous one, does not include the married
quarters; however it does include the WWII domestic site No.3 and the remote sites of the
post-war Illuminated Landing System.
Descriptions are arranged in building numbered order but are also based on type so that similar
structures are grouped together – for example the barrack blocks. Any building numbers
missing in the sequence were demolished before 2004 but an attempt has been made to locate
images of demolished buildings, and these can be found in Appendix 3. Each heading has a
title followed by the Air Ministry drawing number and then a building number in brackets, as
used in the schedule of buildings on record site plans 4542/44 and 6342/54. A ten figure grid
reference (NGR) is included, taken from a set of 1:2500 scale Ordnance Survey maps
(TL 4064-4164, TL 4065-4165, TL 4066-4166). In all cases the reference point is the building’s
centre.
The description of each building is based on both the primary source (which in most cases is
the quoted drawing) as well as field work observations. In the text, room dimensions are shown
in imperial units followed by the metric equivalent, displayed as millimetres and shown in
brackets. Wall thickness is also shown in imperial values and in order to cut down on repetition
the following millimetre equivalents apply:
Inches 4.5 6 11 13.5 15 27
Millimetres 114 152 279 343 381 686
After the description there is a footprint dimension shown as a bullet point which is a nominal
figure presented in decimal imperial units (metre equivalents are shown in brackets).
The conclusion which accompanied the original report has been omitted as it no longer applies.
• Appendix 1 is a table listing all buildings constructed between 1939 and 1955 and
includes the status of the building in September 2004.
• Appendix 2 is a table containing a room inventory dated 28 February 1941. It is based on
an incomplete set of documents found in building 51.
• Appendix 3 is a small collection of images of buildings demolished before the 2004
survey.
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