WW II Picket Post, Ballynahatten Road, Kilkeel, Newry, Co Down, BT34 4LG is a Grade Record Only listed building in the Newry, Mourne and Down local planning authority area, Northern Ireland.
WW II Picket Post, Ballynahatten Road, Kilkeel, Newry, Co Down, BT34 4LG
- WRENN ID
- third-crypt-amber
- Grade
- Record Only
- Local Planning Authority
- Newry, Mourne and Down
- Constituency
- South Down MP: Chris Hazzard (SF)
- Country
- Northern Ireland
- Address
- WW II Picket Post, Ballynahatten Road, Kilkeel, Newry, Co Down, BT34 4LG, BT34 4LG
- Irish grid reference
- J 289 124
- Coordinates
- 54.045, -6.03214
- Source
- NI Environment Agency listing
Description
World War II Picket Post, Ballynahatten Road, Kilkeel
A much-altered small single-storey picket post aligned west to east in a field opposite 22 Ballynahatten Road. Dating from the 1940s, it represents austerity wartime architecture designed to minimise material consumption while maximising practical utility.
The building comprises two unequal bays constructed on a concrete plinth with temporary red brick walls (100mm thick), cement rendered and supported by buttresses at regular intervals. The original pitched corrugated asbestos cement roof has been replaced with a corrugated metal mono-pitched roof. Multiple doors and windows have been blocked up, including the main entrance on the right (narrower) bay of the west (road-facing) elevation. The north gable contains three bays, featuring a door to the left bay and a small blocked-up window to the right bay. The east elevation retains blocked-up paired casement windows to each of its two bays. The south gable has a blocked-up door positioned left of centre, flanked by single-paned windows positioned just below the eaves.
The picket post matches Air Ministry design number 14294/40, a typical design found on temporary wartime airfields. Though absent from the 1946 Air Ministry map of Greencastle Aerodrome, it reflects the dispersed utility construction strategy of the period.
Construction at Greencastle began in spring 1942 under contractor Carmichael of Edinburgh. Kilkeel RAF Station was commissioned on 30 July 1942 and handed to the United States Army Air Force on 3 August 1943, becoming Station 237, one of 12 American airfields in Northern Ireland. The station served as a satellite to Langford Lodge near Antrim, preparing aircraft for operational deployment in East Anglia and hosting a Combat Crew Replacement Centre from 20 December 1943 until autumn 1944. The base returned to RAF control on 31 May 1945 and was decommissioned shortly after, remaining in Air Ministry ownership until sale in the early 1960s. The building demonstrates the temporary nature of wartime military construction and possesses industrial archaeological interest.
Local climate
WW II Picket Post, Ballynahatten Road, Kilkeel, Newry, Co Down, BT34 4LG sits in a wetter-than-average part of the UK, with an average of 1,160 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 89% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 96% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 3 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 99% of listed buildings. Of these, 2 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.2°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
More on this building
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- No EPC on record for this property
- No sale records on file
- No related consent applications matched
- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- No flood data for this area
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
Matched applications, energy data and sale records are assembled automatically and may contain errors. Flag incorrect data.
Similar buildings
The closest matches to this building from all 493,000 UK listed buildings, by architecture, period and materials.
- 1 Picket post, Adj to 16 Derryoge Road, Kilkeel, Newry, Co Down, BT34 4JR
- 2 WW2 Structure, In field to south of 45 Lurganconary Road, Kilkeel, Newry, BT34
- 3 House, Adj to 62 Ballymageogh Road, Kilkeel, Newry, Co Down, BT34 4SX
- 4 WW II Structures, South Side of Greencastle Road/ Kittys Road, Kilkeel, Newry, Co Down, BT34 4EJ
- 5 34 Ballyveaghmore Road, Kilkeel, Newry, Co Down, BT34 4UL
this building 1 similar nearby listed buildings
Nearby listed buildings
- World War II structures, To rear of 104 Greencastle Road, Kilkeel, Newry, Co Down, BT34 4JP
- WW2 technical site, Greencastle Road / Slatemill Road, Kilkeel, Newry, Co Down, BT34 4JW
- World War II structures, To rear of 102 Greencastle Road, Kilkeel, Newry, Co Down, BT34 4JP
- WW II Watch office (control tower ), in field on west side of Slatemill Road, Kilkeel, Newry, Co Down, BT34 4JW
- WW II Structures, Adj to 5 Nicholsons Road, Kilkeel, Newry, Co Down, BT34 4JN
- 16 Dunaval Road, Kilkeel, Newry, Co Down, BT34 4JT
- WW II Structure, to rear of 76 Greencastle Road, Kilkeel, Newry, Co Down, BT34 4JL
- World War II Structures, near coast in a field, to west side of Nicholsons Road, Kilkeel, Newry, Co Down
- Moore Lodge, 74 Greencastle Road, Kilkeel, Newry, Co Down, BT34 4JL
- Eastwood, 8 Cranfield Road, Ballynahatten, Kilkeel, Newry, Co Down, BT34 4LL