Information and pictures about the military in Warminster and district including The Tank Barracks, The School Of Infantry, The Land Warfare Centre, Boreham Barracks, Battlesbury Barracks, Knook Camp, Sutton Veny, Boyton and Corton, Codford, Longbridge Deverill, Salisbury Plain, etc.
Tuesday 14th November 2017
A plaque on the north wall inside the
Church of St. Peter & St. Paul, Longbridge Deverill.
The wording reads:
“In loving memory of Squadron Leader
Harold James Fitz, R.A.F.
Born 1st November 1914.
Killed 12th March 1953.
Buried with his crew at Leconfield, Yorks.
Also in loving memory of his wife Heather
1916 – 1992.
Rest in Peace.”
Photograph taken by Danny Howell
on Tuesday 14th November 2017.
Tuesday 16th May 2017
An email from Danny Howell to Philip Clark:
Hello Philip,
At this year’s ANZAC Service at Sutton Veny you asked me if I could verify something you had read (but forgot where) about a fight involving soldiers at Sutton Veny which resulted in the soldiers having to be separated.
Could it be that you read this in Gertrude McCracken’s booklet Looking Back On Seventy Years Of Sutton Veny, published in June 1981?
The last paragraph on page 17 reads:
“The British troops were eventually moved out of the village and the Australian soldiers moved in. Around the same time, soldiers from Canada and New Zealand moved in to Codford and the Wylye Valley. Not long after they arrived a fight started between all three nationalities near Pine Cottages on the Tytherington road. Two men were killed and it was rumoured that forty had been injured. The New Zealanders were then moved onto Salisbury Plain and the Canadians transferred elsewhere.”
Regards, Danny.
Philip Clark has replied –
Thank you, Danny. You’re a STAR!
Regards,
Philip.
Tuesday 1st November 2016
Warminster Town Crier Phil Seddon,
pictured at Three Horseshoes Walk,
Warminster, wearing his poppy amid
all the colourful finery of his costume.
Photograph taken by Danny Howell
on Tuesday 1st November 2016.
Saturday 24th September 2016
2238 (Warminster) Sqn Air Training Corps
held a coffee morning and cake sale at their
HQ at Woodcock Lane, Warminster, on
Saturday 24th September 2016, donating the
proceeds to Macmillan Cancer Support.
This young air training cadet
welcomed visitors at the entrance
and offered free cake as a taster.
A very smart young man ~
a credit to Warminster!
Inside 2238 (Warminster) Squadron HQ.
Cakes galore!
Apple tarts.
Photographs taken by Danny Howell.
Coffee cake.
Jam doughnuts.
Orange and lemon cake.
Friday 27th March 2015:
The fundamentally flawed Warminster Draft Neighbourhood Plan, which has been controversial since its conception, thanks to the total secrecy of the Warminster Town Council Working Group who compiled it not letting the public know anything of the proposals it contains, is now being riduculed by Warminster residents en masse.
Within hours of its delayed publication, the Draft Plan met with loud protests over its proposal to push a vehicular highway up through the pedestrianed Avenue, causing a safety risk to pupils and staff of the Avenue Primary School and the Avenue Early Years Education Centre. Likewise, proposals for demolishing Warminster Library, the Warminster Information Centre, Shearwater Lodge Mental Health Clinic and other buildings have also stirred anger among Warminster residents.
Now it seems another suggestion in the Plan ~ the building of an extension to Kingdown School on military land on the north side of Woodcock Road ~ is being dismissed but not by the already vociferous public but in writing by the Ministry Of Defence.
Page 38 of the Draft Plan, 6.5.7. reads:
“Secondary education requirements appear more problematic. Kingdown School has only limited scope to expand on its present site and may not therefore be able to accommodate the projected number of pupils without intervention. With no plans for an additional secondary school in the town based on the perceived growth levels, innovative arrangements may be required. Given that the size of the present school site is the main limiting factor, expansion onto the west end of SHLAA site 2073 (Battlesbury Barracks) may offer a pragmatic solution which retains all secondary education in close proximity.”
Many local residents have for some while been trying to ascertain whether the Ministry Of Defence (MOD) which owns most of the land north of Woodcock Road would consent to giving up its barracks and military training land to allow a school and also more private residential estates to be built. The Battlesbury Barracks site was among the SHLAAs (the Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment sites) but it is only in very recent years that millions of pounds have been spent on this site, updating it with modern accommodation for soldiers and military amenity buildings. The question being asked by many local residents was does Warminster Town Council seriously think those new modern military buildings at Battlesbury Barracks could be simply demolished to make way for a secondary school extension ~ and more alarmingly ~ were members of Warminster Town Council seriously in favour of building residential estates all the way to Battlesbury Hill and Cradle Hill, as hinted by a member of the Draft Plan Working Group?
Up until recently, no answers to these questions have been forthcoming from members of Warminster Town Council or the MOD. That is, until today. Warminster resident Al Wright (who has been scrutinising not only the Draft Neighbourhood Plan but also the way Warminster Town Council has been ignoring public opinion and finding in favour of controversial housing developments including Spurt Mead) has, thanks, to his sheer persistence, now received the following statement from the DIO (the MOD’s Defence Infrastructure Organisation:
“To offer some clarity, the Defence Infrastructure Organisation, on behalf of the Ministry of Defence (MOD) will be making representations to the Warminster Neighbourhood Plan to remove the education designation from Battlesbury Barracks and is further requesting Wiltshire Council to remove this site and others in the MOD ownership from future iterations of the SHLAA.”
So, there we have it. This appears to put paid to the Kingdown School expansion scheme being feasible close to the present school. So where will the school expand to? If the MOD is not submitting its land (to the north and east of Warminster) as SHLAA sites, does that mean a new secondary school will have to be built instead to the west or south of Warminster? If so, where in the west or the south? The Draft Plan does not include any other options for locations for a Kingdown School extension.
Al Wright concludes: “As with all the info presented in the Warminster Draft Neighbourhood Plan, it has not been researched and has no evidential backing; they [the Working Group] didn’t expect anyone to check but they made a mistake by thinking the Kingdown School extension could just go on MOD land without the MOD having a say in the matter.”
Sunday 10th August 2014
View from Sack Hill, of the Warminster Land Warfare Centre off Imber Road, Roberts Road, and the Elm Hill area in the rain and the greyness. Copheap and Arn Hill form the horizon. Photograph taken by Danny Howell on Sunday 10th August 2014.
Monday 4th August 2014
The poppies in the planters in Warminster have bloomed on time for the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of World War One.
These poppies are in one of the planters between Iceland and the Library at Three Horseshoes Walk.
Photographs taken by Danny Howell.
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
~ John McCrae, May 1915.
Tuesday 15th July 2014
Warminster Town Council have acknowledged that the recent sorry state of the Lych Gate at Copheap, Warminster, was due to decay and not vandalism, [as reported on Danny Howell’s website in November 2013 and January 2014].Â
The memorial has now been fully repaired to a high standard by volunteers from Aspire. At last night’s meeting of the Town Council the repair of the Lych Gate and a suggestion for an annual service at the Lych Gate or a dedication service for it were discussed.
Councillor Paul Batchelor told his fellow councillors that the maintenance had received good publicity. He confirmed that there had been no vandalism over the Christmas 2013 holiday period (as had been reported in the Warminster Journal) and that the missing pillars and fallen roof tiles of the Lych Gate had been caused by rotting wood and general neglect. He said the carpenters from Aspire had now restored the memorial to a high standard.
Councillor Batchelor suggested that rather than hold an annual service at Copheap as some people had expressed a wish for, it might be more appropriate to hold a dedication for the Lych Gate on 11th November. It was noted that the Warminster Branch of the Royal British Legion holds a remembrance ceremony at St. Lawrence’s Chapel in the High Street, Warminster, on the morning of the 11th day of the 11th month, and maybe this could be followed in the afternoon with a dedication service at the Copheap Lych Gate. Councillor Batchelor proposed this and Councillor Paul Macdonald seconded. Voting was unanimously in favour. The Town Clerk, Heather Abernethie, will liaise with the Warminster Branch of the Royal British Legion.
Wednesday 2nd July 2014
Jo Caminiti writes ~
SANDHILL CAMP, LONGBRIDGE DEVERILL
“Hi Danny,
My name is Jo Caminiti, from Victoria, Australia. I saw you were interested in this subject on your website. The Australian War Memorial had digitised official AIF war diaries and in doing research on my grandfather’s service in 1918/19 I found the records of the No 3 Battalion, Overseas Training Brigade located at Sandhill Camp, Longbridge Deverill. Records are available from late 1917 to end 1918 at http://www.awm.gov.au/collection/AWM4/23/98/
My grandfather arrived in England on 13 November 1918 and his diary refers to arriving at Tidworth station on 15 November 1918 and marching 2 miles to camp at Parkhouse No. 2. I am still trying to work out what the official name of the camp was so that I can gather information from the AIF war diaries. He remained there until 5 December when he went on leave to visit London and friends in Edinburgh before returning to No. 6 camp 14 Hurdcott for 6 weeks training before going over to France.
I am in the research phase for a book based around my grandfather’s diaries and letters about his time in the Graves Registration Detachment exhuming fallen soldiers from the battlefields and smaller cemeteries and re-interring them in the larger concentration cemeteries around Villers Bretonneux on the Western Front.
I hope you find the link to the AIF war diaries of interest and that they fill in some gaps.”
Danny Howell writes ~
Jo didn’t mention grandfather’s name, so I got in touch and asked, and this is Jo’s reply:
“My Grandfather was Private William Frampton McBeath AIF 58th Division who then joined the Australian Graves Registration Detachment from March – August 1919. My Mother, Norma Harrision (nee McBeath) self published his diaries and letters in the 1990s which are now digitised in the State Library of Victoria. The link is http://cedric.slv.vic.gov.au/R/GM2LAJNNMC2KGD48RBY61UU2MAVKJ1CB1M69BLQS9JPIVJRQD4-03934?func=results-jump-full&set_entry=000006&set_number=000601&base=GEN01. If the link doesn’t work, go to the State Library of Victoria website and search for World War 1 unit histories and you can find it in the infantry section. There is a great letter that describes his time over Christmas & New Year on the Salisbury Plains, particularly traipsing around in the snow at night trying to find escaped prisoners from camp.
I am now researching material to write a book based on my grandfather’s diaries and letters and am finding all sorts of fascinating information in digitised records, photos, diaries and newspaper articles on websites and blogs. The challenge will be pulling it all into a coherent story.”
Saturday 7th June 2014
The foundations are laid for the newÂ
headquarters of Warminster ATC
at Woodcock Lane, Warminster.
Photographs taken by Danny Howell
on Saturday 7th June 2014.
Wernick Buildings.
The Wernick Manager is Tony Day.
