Second World War hut, Great Sampford Airfield, dispersed site (RAF), near Farrowby Cottage (EHER 81009)

The huts that form the building recorded at Farrowby Cottage are a combination of timber construction and brick construction, an indication of two phases building.

January 2024. Level 3 building survey. The huts that form the building recorded at Farrowby Cottage are a combination of timber construction and brick construction, an indication of two phases building. The sectional timber hut seems have been erected first followed by the addition of the half brick hut and the outshot. The similarities in construction techniques and types of windows incorporated in the half-brick hut and the outshot indicate they were built at the same time. The most plausible use of the building during the war seems to be a some kind of workshop. The height and large-size of the sectional timber hut would have made a generous workspace, with a number of windows on each wall to allow plenty of light to work by. The half-brick hut may have been storerooms and smaller workshops. The bricked up openings in the south-western elevation of the brick store, along with the high pressure gauge in room 10, are possibly related to some kind of gas-powered machinery that required ventilation. The reused doors in room 8 of the half-brick hut are an indication there was a field hospital somewhere on site. For a time during its short-lived wartime existence, RAF Great Sampford was used mainly for emergency landings, further compounding the presence of a field hospital. Its possible the hut recorded at Farrowby Cottage was some kind of medical centre, although no other evidence of this is obvious. Regardless of the way the building at Farrowby Cottage was employed during the war, it forms part of a stock of huts that have largely been lost due to their transitory and temporary nature. The survival and utilisation of these huts attests to the ‘make do and mend’ attitude adopted and embraced by the British people after the war. The RAF may have seen the temporary hutting of the Second World War as disposable but the local farmers saw an opportunity to expand their existing stock of farm-buildings with ready-made and easily adaptable structures. This secondary use offered an unexpected longevity to this military building which otherwise would have completely disappeared from the historic record. <1>