Rougham Tower (Former Control Tower To Raf Rougham)

Heritage listing

Details RUSHBROOKE WITH ROUGHAM 490/0/10009 Rougham Tower (former control tower to 01-DEC-05 RAF Rougham) GV II Control Tower. 1942. Built to designs of the Air Ministry's Directorate of Works and Buildings, as Office for All Commands design, to Drawing No. 12779/41. Rendered brick with asphalt roof. PLAN: ground floor has watch office to front with duty pilot's rest room, meteorological office, switch room and lavatories to rear; first floor has control room to front, with controller's rest room and signals office to rear, opening onto passage with access to stairs. EXTERIOR: large multi-paned steel casements to front and to flank walls of watch office and control room, providing clear views of the flying field, these having been reduced in size later in the war (to design 343/43). Access from steel stairs on return elevation to concrete balcony with tubular steel railings and with iron columns providing support. Smaller steel casements to rear part of side and rear elevations. Doors to left-hand and rear elevations. INTERIOR: concrete stairs; painted brick walls with rendered dados; original joinery including panelled doors throughout. Remarkably, some wartime signs have survived on the doors and walls. HISTORY: The Control Tower is one of 162 examples built to this Air Ministry design (Watch Office for All Commands), of which 82 now survive. It is one of a very small number which have survived in this degree of preservation - other examples being Alconbury (with operations room attached), Duxford, Dunkeswell, East Kirkby, Little Walden (or Matching Green) and Ludham. Rougham airfield was occupied by the USAAF's 94th Bomb Group, whose more notable missions included those against the ball bearing works at Eberhausen and Schweinfurt, and the Marienburg raid of 9 October

From the Historic England List Entry under OGL v3.