WW2 technical site, Greencastle Road / Slatemill Road, Kilkeel, Newry, Co Down, BT34 4JW

This is a group of six surviving Second World War structures forming the core of the technical site of Greencastle Aerodrome, located on Greencastle Road and Slatemill Road near Kilkeel, County Down. Designed by the Air Ministry and built in spring 1942 by the main contractor Carmichael of Edinburgh, the buildings represent the austere, utilitarian construction typical of hastily erected temporary wartime airfields. They are not architectural set pieces; their significance lies in their historical context, their deliberately minimal use of materials, and their short practical lifespan. The mechanical transport office is the most intact of the group and retains most of its original fabric, including some interesting painted doors.

Construction at what became known as Kilkeel RAF Station began in spring 1942, and the station was commissioned on 30th July 1942. It was handed over to the United States Army Air Force on 3rd August 1943, becoming Station 237, one of twelve American airfields in Northern Ireland. The station served as a satellite to Langford Lodge near Antrim, preparing aircraft for operational bases in East Anglia. It also functioned as a training school for aircrews arriving from America, with a Combat Crew Replacement Centre established on 20th December 1943 and disbanded in autumn 1944. The base was returned to the RAF on 31st May 1945 and decommissioned shortly afterwards, though the buildings remained in Air Ministry ownership until their sale in the early 1960s. A 1946 Air Ministry map identifies this cluster as the technical area, with runways to its west and south. These buildings and a nearby watch tower are all that remains of over one hundred structures that once stood on the technical site. There were over six hundred airfields in Britain by the end of the Second World War, twenty-nine of them in Northern Ireland. The principal building groups were of utility construction and were deliberately dispersed around the local area to reduce vulnerability to concentrated enemy bombing; the radar station, for example, was located at Maghereagh to the north-east of Kilkeel.

The six structures are described individually as follows.

Structure A: Mechanical Transport Office and Lorry Bays. This group of offices and lorry bays stands to the north of Greencastle Road, opposite number 115, aligned north-west to south-east with a north-east facing façade. The office block is a low, single-storey, five-bay structure. It has a pitched corrugated asbestos cement roof with a semicircular ridge, and three cement-rendered, coped chimneys each with two pots: the first on the left gable, the second between bays two and three, and the third between bays four and five. Rainwater goods are semicircular asbestos cement, resting on the buttresses. The walls are temporary red brick, 100mm thick, rendered, with buttresses at either end and between each bay. Each bay is approximately 3 metres wide. On the north-east front elevation, reading left to right: bay one contains a single window opening with a pair of eight-paned metal casements; bay two has a painted sheeted timber door to the left and an eight-paned casement to the right; bay three has a pair of eight-paned casements; bay four has a single eight-paned casement; and bay five has a sheeted door with an eight-paned casement to its right. The right gable abuts the lorry bays; the left gable has two buttresses and no openings. On the rear elevation, reading left to right: bays one and two each have a pair of eight-paned casements; bay three has a two-paned casement and a three-paned casement; bay four has a three-paned casement, a sheeted door, and a two-paned casement; bay five has a pair of eight-paned casements. The lorry bays abut the right gable of the office block. They are taller than the office block and consist of six identical bays. The roof is pitched corrugated asbestos cement with a semicircular asbestos ridge and circular asbestos cement stops. The walls are cement-rendered permanent red brick, 200mm thick. Each bay is separated by a buttress supporting the lintel over each doorway; each lintel is formed by a pair of iron bars upon which the brickwork is built. Between each buttress at eaves level is a plain timber eaves board. Each front opening retains the remains of a timber doorframe but no doors survive. Abutting each front buttress, a modern concrete block wall has been built; at the base of each wall is a concrete block with a chamfered front and a hole in each cheek, which appear to be original. The right gable is blank with two buttresses. The left gable abuts the offices and the remaining wall above is blank. The rear wall of each lorry bay is identical, with a pair of two-over-two metal casement windows between each buttress. Note: this structure was recorded as demolished as of 22nd January 2002.

Structure B: Plant Structure. A single-storey, single-bay structure of rectangular plan, aligned north-west to south-east, situated in a field to the north of Greencastle Road. It has a flat, overhanging cast in-situ concrete roof. The walls are permanent red brick, 200mm thick, laid in alternating header and stretcher courses (English garden wall bond) on a concrete plinth. The north-west elevation has a sheet metal door protected by a brick blast wall to its front and right. The north-east elevation is blank except for four wall vents and a circular pipe approximately 10 centimetres in diameter rising from the ground and turning into the wall at a 45-degree angle at approximately 75 centimetres high. The south-east elevation is blank except for two vents. The south-west elevation is also blank, with two vents and four pipes similar to those on the north-east elevation, each S-shaped in section, advancing from the wall, rising parallel to it, and then turning away from it.

Structure C: Sheds. A group on the south side of Greencastle Road consisting of two sheds aligned parallel to one another north-west to south-east, linked by two smaller link blocks aligned south-west to north-east. Both main blocks have pitched corrugated asbestos cement roofs with semicircular ridges and circular stops. The right block has a red brick chimney rising from its right pitch. The link blocks have similar but lower roofs tying into the main roofs. Temporary red brick walls, 100mm thick, are rendered, with buttresses approximately every 3 metres on the side elevations. The north-west facing elevation consists of a gable to the left and right linked by a lower block. The right gable advances forward by one bay; both gables have a pair of sheet metal doors to the centre, flanked by an infilled window opening. The link between the two gables is three bays wide, with a sheeted door to the centre and blocked-up windows to the left and right bays. The left block is flush with the link block on the façade and is eight bays deep, with a blocked-up window opening to each bay. Its rear gable has a timber sliding loading door at the centre. To the rear, this block advances one bay ahead of the link block; the exposed bay of the south-east elevation has a blocked-up window opening. The rear link block has a small lean-to porch to its central bay, with a blocked-up window to the left and right bays. The right block advances two bays forward of the central link block, with blocked-up window openings on these exposed cheeks. It is ten bays deep, with a blocked-up window opening to each bay, and its rear gable has a large modern loading bay. It advances two bays beyond the rear link block, and the windows to both of these exposed bays are blocked up. A small central yard between the two link blocks was not inspected during recording.

Structure D: Speech Broadcasting Building. A small, single-storey, single-bay structure located in the corner of a field. It has a flat, slightly overhanging concrete roof. The walls are permanent red brick, 200mm thick, laid in English garden wall bond on a concrete plinth. The entrance on the north-east elevation consists of a doorway with a concrete lintel, protected by a brick blast wall one and a half bricks deep to the front and right. Each remaining wall has four small vents. This building housed amplifier equipment that transmitted station broadcasts as part of the Tannoy public address system.

Structure E: Shed. A single-storey, six-bay structure aligned west to east. It has a pitched corrugated asbestos cement roof with semicircular ridges and no rainwater goods. The walls are cement-rendered temporary red brick, 100mm thick, with buttresses between each bay and at either end. The west gable has two buttresses and a blocked-up door to the left. The north elevation has a blocked-up window opening to each bay, each probably originally containing a pair of steel casements. The east gable has two buttresses and is blank. On the south elevation, the first, second, and sixth bays have window openings matching those on the east elevation; the third and fifth bays have single narrow windows probably originally containing single steel casements; and the fourth bay contains a pair of modern corrugated metal doors in an original opening.

Structure F: Shed. A single-storey, ten-bay structure aligned north to south. It has a pitched corrugated asbestos cement roof with a semicircular ridge, circular asbestos cement stops, and a raised asbestos cement vent to the southern end of each pitch. There are no rainwater goods. The walls are cement-rendered temporary red brick, 100mm thick, with buttresses between each bay. The north gable has two buttresses and a pair of internally hung sliding timber doors. The east elevation is ten bays long but is much altered: the fourth and ninth bays appear to have contained doorways and the remainder window openings. The south gable has two buttresses and is blank. The west elevation has window openings to bays two, four, six, and ten, all of which are infilled; bays seven and nine have doors; and the remaining bays — one, three, and five — are blank.