WW II Structure

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Single storey, nine and a half bay an ablutions block, aligned NW-SE on West side of Greencastle Road. Constructed on a concrete plinth, with ground falling away on S and W sides. Each bay is approximately 10ft wide.

Pitched corrugated asbestos cement roof, semicircular ridges with circular asbestos cement stops. Moulded asbestos cement barge boards. Assortment of raised vents on roof. No rainwater goods. Temporary brick walls (100mm thick) are smooth cement rendered. They have one brick deep buttresses at regular intervals (forming bays) that support the internal roof structure.

SE gable three bays with a single central door blocked up and served by a concrete loading platform with steps up on right side. Left and right bays have small steel casements; left boarded up, right blocked up.

Each side elevation has a single steel window to each bay, these are typically three paned casements without cills. Doors are typically framed and sheeted painted timber. There are three doors on NE elevation, it is uncertain whether all are original. There are no doors on SW elevation.

NW gable is abutted to centre by a rendered brick water tower. To its left and right are single doors. Tower rises above gable and has a flat, overhanging concrete roof. The metal tank can be seen through an opening on the SE face of tower and there is a doorway at ground floor left cheek and concrete road to main road.

Historical information

The 1946 map of Greencastle Aerodrome shows this building within ‘Living site One’. Murphy also states that there was a giant water tank on pylons located behind Moore lodge, to NE. It is similar to an ablutions block illustrated in Lowery (Fig 64 p.118). Living site One had approximately 70 buildings, (not including air raid shelters) of which only this building remains. The vast majority of the others were Nisen huts, which were sold after the war.

There were over 600 airfields in Britain at the end of WW2, and 29 in Northern Ireland. Construction work began at Greencastle in spring 1942, the main contractor being Carmichael of Edinburgh. Kilkeel RAF Station (as it was known) was commissioned on 30th July 1942, and handed over to the United States Army Airforce (USAAF) on 3rd August 1943, becoming Station 237, one of 12 such American airfields in N. Ireland. Its principal building groups were of utility construction, and dispersed around the local area to avoid concentrated enemy bombing; its radar station being furthest away, located at Maghereagh to NE of Kilkeel. The station was a satellite to Langford Lodge (near Antrim), preparing aircraft for operational bases in East Anglia. Its second important role was as a training school for aircrews arriving from America; this Combat Crew Replacement Centre (CCRC) was instigated on 20th December 1943, and was disbanded in autumn 1944. The base was handed back to the RAF on 31st May 1945, and decommissioned soon afterwards. It remained in Air Ministry ownership until the early 1960s when it was sold back to locals.

Primary Sources:
1. Air Ministry Map entitled; ‘Greencastle Record Site Plan; Dispersed Sites’ (1946).

Secondary Sources:
1. G. B. Innes, ‘British Airfield Buildings of the Second World War’ (Leicester 1995), p.5.
2. B. Lowery (ed), ‘20th Century Defences in Britain, an introductory guide’ (British Council for Archaeology 1996).
3. L. Murphy, ‘Action Station: The story of Greencastle Aerodrome’, in 12 Miles of Mourne vol. 3 (Kilkeel 1989), pp.33-50.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Austerity architecture of the second world war attempted to simplify construction down to the minimal amount of materials and marry it with the maximum utility. This building is not an architectural masterpiece. Its interest lies in the historical reasons for its construction (WW2), its short practical lifespan, and its austere ‘temporary’ construction.