Monument record ORF 178 - Former RFC Officers' Mess and AWRE canteen building

2007: Field survey of the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment by Historic England (S1).

The Officers' Mess was built by the RFC in approximately 1915 and was used by Watson-Watt for early experiments on radar.

GRADE II LISTED BUILDING (S2).
MATERIALS. The former Officers' Mess is constructed from pre-cast concrete blocks with a felted and pitched timber roof; the AWRE extension to the west is in red brick.

PLAN A 'T' shape overall.

EXTERIOR The former Officers' Mess is a four-bay building with a gable roof with four timber casement windows to the north and south elevations (some are early C21 replica timber windows). The principal entrance is at the east elevation. At the south elevation is a truncated brick chimney stack, presumably for a stove or fireplace.

Attached at the west end is a single-storey, flat-roofed 1950s extension with casement windows and a door at the west elevation.

INTERIOR There are few fixtures and fittings remaining; the exposed Belfast roof trusses of the 1915 phase have been partially reconstructed.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES. A number of concrete footings and mast bases, thought to consist of 2 groups of 4 for transmitters to the north and south of the building, and one single large base for a receiver to the west, relate to the radar experimentation of the mid 1930s.

2020:Survey 1 took place in July 2016 and recorded features along the shingle shelf of Orford Beach, including the Coastguard watch house beside the lighthouse, a concrete structure of unknown function and a ground marker used in ballistics trails. Survey 2 took place in September 2016 and focused on recording the visible remains of the First World War Prisoner of War (POW) camp. Survey 3 took place in June 2017 and created Historic England Level 1/Level 2 record of the First World War Barrack/Stores and the First World War/1950s canteen. Survey 4 in March and June 2018 used the CITiZAN app to start creating a Historic England Level 1 record for all buildings and building remains on Orford Ness. A total of 123 new features were added to CITiZAN's publicly accessible, interactive web based map and 44 National Trust HBSMR records were updated with images and/or text. Survey 5, a CITiZAN/MOLA survey, took place in December 2019 and January 2020. This created photographic and drawn records of the Coastguard watch house and a photographic the nearby concrete structure. The concrete structure collapsed due to coastal erosion not long after (S3).