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World War One Audit of Surviving Remains
Date 4 June 2013
Event ID 961194
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type World War One Audit of Surviving Remains
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/961194
Leuchars is reported as being the site of early military experimentation with balloons, in 1911, by the Royal Engineers (Smith 1983).
In August 1918 Leuchars was recorded in a survey of RAF stations as a ‘Temporary Training Depot Station’ the function of which was the training of pilots for single seat fighters. It was to become the home of the Fleet Gunnery and Fighting School, then at East Fortune. Its form as recorded in 1918 was the standard for a Training Depot, six aircraft hangars and an Aircraft Repair Shed, as well as huts for teaching, workshops and accommodation for the officers who commanded the depot, their officer and Non-Commissioned Officer pupils, and the male and female service personnel who worked there; the contemporary plan shows over 20 buildings in the technical area, within the aerodrome boundary, and over 25 in the accommodation area to the north-west. At the time of the report, in August 1918 the station’s establishment was 180 pupils, and a permanent staff of 659, of whom 216 were women. The aerodrome occupied an area of 89 hectares, measuring 1143m by 823m. In August 1918 the buildings of the station were still under construction.
Leuchars appeared again in another RAF survey, in November 1918, by which time it had been taken over by the Fleet Gunnery and Fighting School. The layout and buildings of the station remained the same and the number of pupils, for whom this was a ‘finishing school’ in gunnery and fighting, was 160. The training course would last three weeks and the average monthly throughput of trained pilots was estimated at 200.
Five First World War buildings within the Leuchars complex definitely survive and are listed as of that period: two timber-clad hangars in the technical area (buildings 55 and 57, HS listing reference 51423) and three smaller buildings in the accommodation area (buildings 25, 26 and 27, HS listing reference 51418). Comparison between the plan and modern mapping suggests that there may be nine further buildings in both technical and accommodation areas which, in part at least, date from the First World War.
Information from HS/RCAHMS World War One Audit Project (GJB) 31 May 2013
