WW2 structures

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Two small single storey / single bay wartime structures, located close to the original runways.

A) NE building is smaller of the two. Flat cast in situ concrete roof, slightly overhanging, with no rainwater goods.

Walls are permanent (200mm) red brick, laid in English Garden Wall bond, with advanced piers to left and right ends of the NE and SW walls, which are both blank. NW wall has a doorway set to slightly to its left, it contains a modern door and has a concrete lintel. SE wall has a small window opening and is abutted by a modern metal tank on concrete block piers.

B) SW building is aligned NW-SE. It has a pitched corrugated asbestos cement roof with semicircular ridges and with round asbestos cement stops. No rainwater goods. Walls are permanent (200mm) red brick, laid in English garden bond.

NW gable has a sliding sheet metal door on left side. SW elevation is blank and abutted by two metal pipes (10cm diameter) rising from the ground and running up wall and turning into wall near roof. SE gable has a doorway (no door) with concrete lintel, to left side. NE elevation is blank.

Historical information

The 1946 map of Greencastle Aerodrome shows these buildings. Although their use is unknown, their construction and close locality to the runways suggest they are technical or plant structures.

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, the site 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’(1946).

Secondary Sources:
1. G.B. Innes, ‘British Airfield Buildings of the Second World War’ (Leicester 1995).
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 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. These building are not an architectural masterpieces. Their interest lies in the historical reasons for their construction (WW2), their short practical lifespan, and their austere ‘temporary’ construction.