Home sought for historic WWI hut

Home sought for historic WWI hut

13 November 2024

NEWRY, Mourne and Down Council is looking for 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 will 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.

The hut mirrors those which were in place at Ballykinlar camp. When it was officially opened, it was hailed as a major new attraction at the museum.

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

They 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 1916.

They later housed 1,800 republican internees who were arrested all over Ireland during the Irish War of Independence in late 1920 and 1921.

During World War 2 they housed evacuees from Malta, American GIs and German prisoners of war. They also sheltered refugees after the Russian invasion of Hungary in 1956. 

The last huts were dismantled in 2012. 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. 

Local historian Philip Orr’s book, published by the museum entitled ‘Ballykinlar Camp, The First 70 Years’, 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. 

At Monday night’s meeting of the local council’s Economy, Regeneration and Tourism Committee, councillors were reminded that the hut was always going to be temporary and had a limited lifespan.

Planning permission to erect the hut was also time-bound due to the heritage of the museum site.

The intention at the end of the project was to identify an organisation that would take ownership of it and responsibility for moving it.

Councillors were told the 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.

In addition, a publication featuring the stories of the inhabitants of the huts will be published.

Councillors agreed on Monday night to formally begin the expression of interest process to have the hut removed in a safe and cost-effective manner by a suitable interested party before the end of the financial year.

The successful organisation appointed to remove the hut will be a not-for-profit entity or registered charity and 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.

The closing date for expressions of interest is December 9 and the hut must be removed by the end of next March.