WW II Picket Post

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Much altered small single storey / two bay picket post, aligned W-E in field opposite 22 Ballynahattan Road.

Pitched corrugated asbestos cement roof has been removed and a corrugated metal mono-pitched roof added. Constructed on a concrete plinth. Bays are not the same width. Temporary red brick walls (100mm thick), cement rendered with buttresses at regular intervals, forming the bays and supporting the roof structure.

A single blocked up door forms the main entrance on right (narrower) bay of W (road facing) elevation. On left bay is a window opening, now blocked up.

N (left) gable has three bays with a door to left bay and a small blocked up window to right bay.

E elevation has a blocked up paired casement window opening to each of its two bays.

S gable has a door (blocked up) to left of centre, flanked by single paned windows just below eaves.

Historical information

The 1946 Air Ministry map of Greencastle Aerodrome does not show this picket post. However it is a typical design found on temporary WW2 airfields; and matches Air Ministry design number 14294/40.

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. However, they remained in Air Ministry ownership until their sale in the early 1960s.

Primary Sources:
1. Map: ‘Greencastle Record Site Plan’, (Air Ministry, 1946).

Secondary Sources:
1. G.B. Innes, ‘British Airfield Buildings of the Second World War’ (Leicester 1995), p.78.
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’, Twelve 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.