View of a ground-floor meeting room in Hillingdon House of RAF Uxbridge in Vine Lane, Uxbridge. Looking towards the canted bay at the rear of the premises. The house is Grade II listed, listing number 1080115. The room is furnished with polished rosewood long tables with glass ash trays and surrounded by padded dining chairs. With upholstered armchairs around the room, a lectern and a blackboard on an easel on a raised dais, and a framed board fixed to the wall with a pull-down projector screen. The room is lit by pendant globe lamps, and has pictures of commercial and military aircraft pasted on a board on the side wall. The house was originally built as a hunting lodge by the Duke of Schomberg c1717, thereafter the residence of Marchioness of Rockingham (1786), Richard Cox, of Cox and Company, bankers for the British Army (1810). The British government purchased the estate in 1915, and thereafter the house became a Canadian Red Cross military convalescence hospital after the plan to build a prisoner of war camp failed due to local opposition. The Royal Flying Corp Armament School opened in 1917, subsequently RAF Uxbridge (1st April 1918), then became the first headquarters of Royal Air Force Bomber Command for the Aerial Defence of Great Britain (1926), Number 11 Group RAF Fighter Command responsible for the defence of London and the South-East of England (1936), RAF School of Education (1958), and finally the Queen's Colour Squadron (1960-2010). Hillingdon House became HQ for Military Air Traffic Operations (MATO) 1965 to 2000, and latterly also the base for the Service Prosecuting Authority and Civil Aviation Authority's UK Airprox Board (investigating air proximity incidents). The house is now privately owned and has been converted to a restaurant and events venue after the Ministry of Defence closed the facility in 2010. It is now located in Wren Close following redevelopment of the estate.
