Picket post, Adj to 16 Derryoge Road, Kilkeel, Newry, Co Down, BT34 4JR

Picket Post, Adjacent to 16 Derryoge Road, Kilkeel

This small single-storey picket post dates from the Second World War and represents austerity architecture of that period—a design philosophy that minimised material use while maximising practical utility. The building's interest lies not in architectural refinement but in its historical context, its brief practical lifespan, and its austere, deliberately temporary construction methods.

The picket post is a two-bay structure aligned south-west to north-east, positioned at the corner adjacent to 16 Derryoge Road. It sits on a concrete plinth and is topped with a pitched corrugated asbestos cement roof featuring semicircular ridges with circular asbestos cement stops. The moulded asbestos cement bargeboards have no rainwater goods. The walls are constructed in temporary red brick, 100 millimetres thick, cement rendered, with buttresses forming the bays and supporting the roof structure.

The building has multiple openings, most now blocked up. The north-west elevation contains a single door forming the main entrance on the right (narrower) bay, and on the left bay is a pair of four-paned steel casements with no cill. The north-east gable, three bays wide, has a single four-paned metal casement in both the left and right bays. The south-east elevation has a door to the left (narrower) bay and a pair of casements to the right bay. The south-west gable features a door left of centre, flanked by single-paned shoulder-height windows, and a fixed window to the right. All openings are now blocked up. A contemporary concrete road runs to the north-west of the structure, aligned south-west to north-east.

This picket post is the most common type constructed on temporary airfields during the Second World War, identified by Air Ministry drawing number 14294/90. According to the 1946 map of Greencastle Aerodrome, the building stood at the entrance to Living Site Three, which comprised approximately 70 buildings (excluding air raid shelters), of which this is now the sole survivor. The majority of the other structures were Nissen huts, sold after the war.

Greencastle Aerodrome was one of over 600 airfields operational in Britain by the end of the Second World War, and one of 29 in Northern Ireland. Construction began in spring 1942, with Carmichael of Edinburgh as the main contractor. Kilkeel RAF Station, as it was known, was commissioned on 30th July 1942 and handed over to the United States Army Air Force on 3rd August 1943, becoming Station 237, one of 12 American airfields in Northern Ireland. The station's principal buildings were of utility construction and dispersed across the local area to avoid concentrated enemy bombing; its radar station was located at Maghereagh, north-east of Kilkeel. The station served as a satellite to Langford Lodge near Antrim, preparing aircraft for operational bases in East Anglia. From 20th December 1943, it also housed a Combat Crew Replacement Centre for training American aircrew, which was disbanded in autumn 1944. The base was returned to the RAF on 31st May 1945 and decommissioned shortly afterwards. It remained in Air Ministry ownership until the early 1960s, when the land was sold back to local owners. The building is now recorded as derelict.