Council seeks new home for WWI Armstrong hut

Council seeks new home for WWI Armstrong hut

22 January 2025

NEWRY, Mourne and Down Council is firming up its plan to secure a new home for a replica First World War Armstrong hut.

Currently located at the Down County Museum in Downpatrick, the local authority is seeking to find a suitable organisation to remove and relocate the timber hut to ensure it can continue to be accessed by the public.

A second option the council may consider is interested parties declaring an interest in the hut only but not its historical artefacts. However, preference will be given to parties able to find a purpose for both the hut and its contents.

A formal notice has been published this week seeking expressions of interest from groups to remove and take ownership of the hut which some feel should remain where it is at the Downpatrick museum given its significant historical interest.

The hut — which mirrors those which had been in place at Ballykinlar camp – has been hailed as a major tourist attraction.

The £150,000 replica was made possible with financial support from the European Union and while the structure was always going to be a temporary facility, local politicians have rubber-stamped a proposal to dismantle it.

The huts were first built to house 4,000 Belfast men training with the 36th (Ulster) Division for active service on the Western Front, including at the Battle of the Somme in July 1916.

The huts later housed 1,800 republican internees who were arrested all over Ireland during the Irish War of Independence in late 1920 and 1921, with the soldiers in 1914 and the internees in 1921 given the same beds, made from three planks, with four army blankets to sleep on.

The original 60ft by 20ft timber huts, clad with corrugated iron, housed evacuees from Malta, American GIs and German prisoners of war during World War Two and also sheltered Hungarian refugees in 1957, after the Russian invasion of Hungary. 

The last huts were dismantled in Ballykinlar in 2012 when local man Andrew Carlisle recorded how one was built and saved hundreds of artefacts from the sand underneath and donated them to the Downpatrick museum. 

Despite the hut’s popularity with visitors to the museum, politicians have been told the structure is “approaching the end of its life cycle” and that formal planning permission for it had expired.

A successful application was made to extend planning approval on the condition that the hut, located in the museum courtyard, would be removed in its entirety this year with the land it sits on in the courtyard area in front of the Governor’s Residence restored to its former condition.

The hut’s condition has deteriorated over the past several years, with council officials explaining while it was designed as a temporary structure, its deterioration has been accelerated due to excess humidity during last autumn and winter.

All contents and current display items in the hut will be retained for future exhibitions at a suitable location or facility and it’s proposed that a contractor is appointed to dismantle and remove the hut, with a £5,000 budget set aside to cover the cost.

A number of people have taken to social media to express sadness and disappointment at the local authority’s decision to dismantle the structure.

When the hut opened to the public it was hailed as a major new tourist attraction at the English Street museum.

Council staff worked on the hut recreation for three years, assisted by the Centre for Data Digitisation and Analysis at Belfast’s Queen’s University, gathering about 100 stories of people who occupied the huts. 

Local historian Philip Orr’s book, entitled ‘Ballykinlar Camp, The First 70 Years’, which was published by the museum, was an inspiration to staff to recreate an Armstrong hut in the museum’s courtyard in order to tell the human stories of its many occupants, engaging world-wide with families of soldiers, prisoners, evacuees and refugees formerly at the World’s End Camp.

Council officials insist the Ballykinlar hut will have a legacy through its removal to another site within the council area and that the artefacts it houses could be used in future as part of the museum’s collection.

Councillors have previously decided that the successful organisation appointed to remove the hut will be a not-for-profit entity or registered charity.

In addition, it must have good governance structures in place and have the full support of its board or membership to acquire and maintain the hut and placed on a site for a minimum of 20 years.

The organisation must also have a track record of successfully delivering projects.

A publication featuring the stories of the inhabitants of the huts will be published with the closing date for expressions of interest 4pm on Friday, February 21.

Forms are available at museums@nmandd.org.