The Parachute Store

Dating from 1926, the Parachute Store and drying room is now home to The Road Rat Magazine. 

Building 92 offers an unusually complete example of a specialised building, with the isolating lobby an important part of the building's layout to reduce dust gathering on the drying parachutes. 

Its high central area allowed the parachutes, each measured to fit its user, to be hung clear and straight. The building needed to be long enough to lay a parachute lengthways for inspection, too.

Condensation could also render a parachute useless, so ventilation and managed temperatures were vital. The lobby at the entrance aided this by ensuring the outside door was closed before the second door was opened. Temperatures needed to be maintain around 15ºC.

Parachutes had been in use by the military since the First World War but it was not until the 1 August 1942 that the Parachute Regiment (known as the Paras) was officially formed. Preparations for this regiment had been underway since 1940, when Winston Churchill requested 'a corps of at least 5000 parachute troops, suitably organised and equipped'.

The building was used as the Station Church for a brief time after the Second World War and was listed in 2005.